resurgam
by cyclothimic
Summary: When Clarke joined a military hospital in Libya, she didn't expect Princess Alexandria of Polis rolling into her operating theater on a gurney. She soon finds out that their relationship does not just end at her saving the princess' life, and maybe Clarke is not opposed to that. l or Lexa is a princess, Clarke is a doctor, and they don't expect each other in the best way possible.
1. bona fide

**my first ever clexa multi-chapter fic! i have become really obsessed with them and just had to write _something_ to get it all out. also, don't worry, i am fully aware that this reads like total shit. **

**now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

Clarke should have never gotten out of her tent. Call in sick. Pretend her fifth grandmother died and she had to take next chopper out. Get her arm stuck in the door of a military truck. Purposely jump in front of a truck.

Anything, really. She just should have stayed under the scratchy blanket and _adhere_ to the bad feeling that had been clinging to her the moment she received news about what was happening back home.

Except she didn't really have much of a choice now. She had gotten out of bed. She had put on her scrubs. She had reported herself to the hospital And she had treated a fair amount of soldiers that had been dripping in since yesterday evening, until she found herself confronted with the one person she never thought she would ever treat.

Albeit, it took the nurse wiping off the blood off the soldier's face for Clarke to recognize her, but she was kind of glad that she only noticed who she was treating when she was pretty much elbows deep in the woman's chest.

"Is this the _princess_?" she almost shrieked when she identified the face of Alexandria Woods covered in traces of blood on her surgical table.

Well, she did shriek, and attracted the attention of virtually everyone in the operation theatre. Even the machines seemed to have quieten at the noise she had just made at the realization.

The nurse startled at her shriek, but then he approached to have a good look at the soldier's face before his skin significantly paled and he seemed to start sweating more profusely. "I – yes, Dr. Griffin. Yes, this – this is the princess."

"Okay, okay, everyone step back from the table _now_." She lifted her hands from the woman's – the _princess_ ' – cavity.

"Griffin," Wells voice crackled over the intercom, presumably from gallery.

Did everyone know that there was a princess on her table except her?

Clarke gritted her teeth and nodded reassuringly without turning to face him. "Yeah, I'm good. I just need to…"

She drifted off, her concentration spread upon the injuries that had been detected so far and the extent of the damage, the readings on the monitor and the conditions shouted by a passing by nurse earlier before they pushed their way into the surgical section.

"Okay," she muttered, nodding to herself. "Okay." She licked her lips and took a deep breath before addressing the staff unfortunate enough to be handling the royalty lying unconscious on the table. "Alright, everyone, we have a Princess of Polis on our table right now. She's suffering from second degree burns, dislocated right leg, and multiple GSWs. If you don't think you can handle it, you need to step aside." The panic in her voice earlier had all but dissipated, replaced by the authority that had gotten her where she was in the first place.

When she was certain that everyone was where they were supposed to be, she dived back into the soldier.

There was valiant effort to push aside the fact that she was literally saving the life of a royalty, but in the back of her mind, as she requested for a saw and prepared to make her way further deeper into the chest, it was difficult to think about the fact that she was treating the very person who second-in-line to the throne of the country she was born in.

* * *

"So she's okay," Captain Indra Preen stated rather than asked, like she could speak it into existence.

Having seen the captain in action for the two whole years she had been stationed in this hospital, Clarke had no doubt the woman would be capable of that if she wanted to. But that wasn't the point right now. The point was distinctively beautiful, very asleep, and awfully injured, currently sleeping in the highest of quality of rooms they could give in this facility, which wasn't much, to be honest.

"She's alive," Clarke confirmed.

Captain Preen tapped a forefinger on the surface of her desk to a rhythm only she could hear as her scrutinizing eyes fixed on the blonde. Clarke tried her very best to not squirm. "But?" Captain Preen prodded.

"She probably won't be fit for combat after this."

"Probably?"

The doctor swallowed a mouthful of nervous saliva and gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I have to make further assessments when she wakes up."

"What are the chances?"

Clarke grimaced and fought the urge to not scratch the back of her head. "Very high."

No one would believe this if she told them. They would have to see it for themselves, as she herself could hardly believe it. But the captain's expression only managed to intensify in its glower, a clear indication of her displease at this new information.

Clarke expected more questions. She wasn't used to this kind of silence. She wasn't even used to the captain's presence at all. Army doctors rarely had any direct interactions with combat officers, let alone the fucking captain of the camp. Plus, she was a mere sergeant, which only minimized her chances of interacting with the seniors on camp at all.

Still, being the doctor in charge of treating the _princess_ was a big deal, she supposed. She was kind of surprised that she wasn't talking to Lieutenant Colonel or even the General right now. So maybe not that big of a deal.

Captain Preen seemed to have finished with her thought processes when she straightened up in her chair and removed her arm from the top of her desk. "Report to me if there is any update," she ordered.

"Yes, Captain."

"You did good today, doctor."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Dismissed, doctor."

Clarke expected more questions, yes, but that didn't mean she wasn't an opportunist. After bidding the captain a proper farewell, she got the hell out of the makeshift office for the captain and made for the cafeteria. She had spent the better part of her day sweating over a royalty and she was _famished_. Even the worst of hospital globs would taste like a gourmet meal right now.

Once she entered the room, literally everyone stopped whatever they were doing to look at her. She gulped and cursed inwardly once again that she had to be the one to have her hands – literally – on a princess' chest. This wasn't going to leave her for a long time to come. Word had probably spread to other encampments.

"The hero of the hour!"

And Raven wasn't really helping either. The red on her cheeks had probably never been more prominent as they all started clapping and cheering.

* * *

It was the heart monitor that alerted her to the wakefulness of her Very Important Patient. With a lunge, she put down the book she had been reading and rose from the chair to approach the injured soldier who was still struggling with her environment.

Clarke watched as the princess blinked rapidly to adjust to the surroundings, despite the low light that Clarke had adjusted for the night, head moving marginally on the pillow. And then it seemed that she had gained her full focus when she stopped blinking and looked directly at the blonde – and Clarke had to stop herself from gasping at the attention she was receiving.

The entire country – hell, the whole world – was well aware that the Polis Royal Family had exquisite genes. High cheekbones, jawline that could cut diamonds, and eyes that seemed capable of staring into your soul and clawing your very conscience out.

However, Clarke had always thought that Princess Alexandria of Polis, Duchess of Goldcrest, youngest child of King Richmond the Second and Queen Storme the First, was the most beautiful of the lot. A part of her had excused it as the works of photoshop and video editing. But that part of her was cowering in guilt now, because… _damn_.

Even being almost dead and almost losing a leg did not stop her from looking incredibly goddess-like.

She had to really muster the professional in her to avoid getting all sucked up into those viridian irises and forget that she had a job. Technically, she wasn't even supposed to be here right now. The director of the hospital had ordered her to go back to her apartment, fully understanding that treating the princess must have taken a toll on her.

But she couldn't bring herself to leave even though she had the liberty to. It wasn't just because the woman on the bed was the Princess of Polis, but the doctor also hadn't been able to identify as to the exact reason that she was still here.

She swallowed and allowed herself a few short seconds to gather herself before speaking, "Good evening, Your Highness. Good to see you awake." Her hand reached into her coat pocket to retrieve her stethoscope, putting them in her ears.

The bell was almost on the princess' chest when said woman croaked, "It's…Commander."

Clarke paused in her movement, frowning. "I'm sorry?"

The princess sighed, shaking her head in what seemed like dejection as she rolled her eyes upward and then lowered her eyelids, the frown on her forehead deepening, like she was fighting off the pain. Clarke hurriedly check out the other woman's heartbeat before pocketing the stethoscope again and pouring a glass of water for the princess.

"I'm Dr. Clarke Griffin. I was your surgeon. Here, have some water, Your Highness," she remembered to add.

It was when the brunette cast her a look that Clarke finally realized what the news were saying, however rare they came out to be. The second daughter of the Royal Family was not one for many words and she had a knack for hiding from the press – and on the rare occasion that she did show up, she had that expression on her face, as if she could stare someone to death if she wanted to.

Not that Clarke blamed her. Polis prided itself for being a liberal and economically successful country, despite how small it was in comparison to nations like the United States of America and China. Still, the press was the press, and never in Polis history had they ever encountered an LGBT+ royal member, which was why they didn't exactly deal with it well.

The princess was outed in the worst possible way – in an intimate position with a potential girlfriend in an elevator of a hotel, footage leaked by a hotel personnel. The Royal Family had taken their stance immediately, standing by the princess every step of the way and condemning all those who were in involved in the travesty.

So yeah, Clarke didn't really blame the princess for being so obscure and wary.

The princess in question gestured at her position on the bed. It was then that Clarke realized the patient would only choke if she drank lying down, so she quickly adjusted the bed for a more comfortable position. Then she offered the glass of water.

Once the princess had drank the water, she placed it back on the bedside table and addressed Clarke, "It's Commander." Her voice sounded clearer now, and for some reason, it sounded vastly different than hearing it on the radio or television. "Out here, in the warzone, I'm Commander Alexandria Woods. Not Princess. Not Your Highness. None of that nonsense."

The doctor blinked a few times before she inclined her head in acquiescence. Far be it from her to disobey royalty; it could easily be treason, she wasn't too sure.

"Commander it is then…Commander," she said, narrowing her eyes a little at her own blunder.

It wasn't much of a smile, but the soldier's lips did tilt slightly, and Clarke could swear she was eligible to have her own hospital bed or join the princess in the face of that smile. The latter was probably inappropriate and unethical.

The doctor had to suck in a sharp breath and disguise it with a clear of throat before she picked up the chart at the foot of the bed and began asking the routine questions. The princess answered all in the routine way that Clarke had seen many soldiers do – straight to the point and honest. Clarke wrote down all the details and replaced the chart.

"How long have I been out?" the brunette asked.

"Seven hours, give or take."

The princess nodded. "Has anyone alerted my family?" The way she said it made it seem like the princess found the idea distasteful, like she didn't want her family to know anything.

"Captain Preen sent word earlier today."

A groan escaped the princess' lips, which served as something of a surprise to Clarke. Still, a big part of her was glad that even the royalty had human moments, like groaning at the idea of family knowing she had been harmed.

"I'm surprised there are no guards."

"Well, actually, there's one sitting outside right now. He calls himself Gustus."

The princess' eyes widened a little and Clarke seemed to detect a hint of fear in those green eyes. After a moment, two hands pressed against a beautifully tanned face and a muffled "Fuck" sounded from behind those fingers.

Clarke pressed a hand to her lips and smothered a laughter. Before the princess had lowered her hands, she had lowered hers and turned back to the professional façade she had been maintaining since the princess woke up. The quietness became awkward soon and Clarke realized that she had nothing else to do now.

The patient was awake. She didn't kill the princess. She could go home and catch some sleep. The work began again in a new day. Granted, there was no doubt that everyone would be expecting her to show up to report on the princess' conditions, but apart from that, she was pretty much useless. She still wasn't sure what the protocol was, actually, on whether she should tell the princess her diagnosis directly or wait for documents or whatever to pass through.

And the soldier seemed unaware of her own condition.

Clarke had to hide her wince from showing on her face at the thought.

"Well, I'm actually not supposed to be here. I'll alert Gustus and the nurses that you're awake. If you need anything, just press that green button there." She gestured at aforementioned button. "I'll be back tomorrow morning."

"You seem a little too calm for having just saved the life of a royalty." Clarke froze in her move to exit, eyes wide and tongue too tied to actually know what to say. The princess shrugged with a sad smile. "I was there. I know what happened. I have enough medical knowledge to know that my brother is probably on his way right now to fetch me home to the best hospital there is. I also know that you _literally_ saved my life."

Clarke clicked her tongue gently, surveying the royalty lying in a dirty bed in a military hospital at the edge of Libya. "Honestly, I think I almost had a heart attack when I saw that it was you," she finally revealed, thinking that the princess deserved it. It was the right move, she figured, judging by the way the brunette tilted her head and her lips twitched in amusement. "But I'm a doctor, first and foremost, and I wasn't not about to let the most iconic princess of all monarchies in the world to die on my table."

"Iconic?"

"You're the first out and proud lesbian princess…like ever. William and Harry can suck it."

The patient released a snort, surprising Clarke once again with that very human noise that didn't seem to befit a royalty at all. But after everything that had happened today, the doctor was beginning to think that she should learn to take things in stride.

"Can you…stay with me?" the princess requested, displaying a never-before-seen timidity that would have had the entire world reeling had they been here. "I just – I've been asleep for seven hours. I'm pretty sure my brother is on his way to get me home. My military career is pretty much over." There was no concrete reasoning in those words as to why she wanted Clarke to stay, but Clarke understood. In just three sentences, she understood.

"Okay," Clarke whispered. "But I still have to talk to Gustus and the nurses. I feel like I'll get beheaded if I don't alert them that their precious Princess Alexandria is alive and well."

"Their?" the soldier pointed out.

Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the adrenaline leaving her body. Maybe it was the knowledge that this was for tonight, that it would seem like the princess was never even here in the morning. Maybe it was the playful glint in those green eyes that Clarke had never seen on any magazine covers or newspaper clippings. Maybe it was the mischievous smile that Clarke had only ever seen on a leaked photograph that created a nationwide uproar.

Maybe Clarke was just weak for beautiful princesses.

But she shrugged and bit down on her lower lip playfully as she started to backstep towards the door, eyes not leaving the royalty. "To me, you're iconic."

Today seemed to be a day of surprises for Clarke. First, the presence of a royal princess in her operation theater. Then the princess' ability to groan in irritation. Followed by said princess' display of emotions, no matter how menial. And now, the princess heaved a disbelieving laugh, her body shaking at the moment.

"Okay, doctor." When Clarke opened the door, the princess stopped her. "Oh, and doctor? I'd like it if you'd call me Lexa."

Clarke stilled where she was as she gaped at the princess. Lexa was a name that only the Royal Family got to call her, it was an open secret. Not even the media was brave enough to call her that in public. And yet, here and now, the same princess was giving her permission to address her as such.

The blonde would have protested, but in the dim light of the hospital room, she could see the sincerity in the princess' eyes. No sign of hilarity. Just a genuine request from an injured princess who just wanted to do something for her beloved country – in a braver form that Clarke could ever bring herself to do.

So she smiled and nodded in the princess' – _Lexa_ 's – direction. "I'll be right back, Lexa."

* * *

The hallways were still lit, but the hustle and bustle of the day had quietened to the murmurs of nurses at their stations, the mumbles of doctors in the on-call rooms, the discussions of physicians in their meeting rooms, the occasional nightmare talks of injured soldiers, and the buzz of televisions in corners. Crickets made their music outside. Choppers could be heard overhead, transferring soldiers from one place to another. A slight drizzle had developed over the hours, creating a heated humidity that left the nurses with no choice but to crank up the underused air conditioners.

All was quiet. All was peaceful for the moment. All was relishing in the tranquility that nighttime often brought. Well, all _was_ until they reached Room 307 in the military hospital at the outskirts of Libya, far enough away from the reach of the Libyan warzone.

In Room 307, the chatter didn't seem to stop, veering from one topic to another, following no trajectory whatsoever. The patient inside had forgotten her role in the world, her role in her country. The doctor accompanied the patient in that forgetfulness, allowing the patient to shirk her responsibilities for however many hours they could afford.

The guard sitting outside, Gustus, the man who was personally requested by King Richmond to protect his daughter before dispatch, fought a smiles or two, glad to hear that his charge had gotten a bit of light in this incident. God only knew the kind of mess she would find herself in when they got back home – not of her own doing, but of her heritage, her blood.

She didn't ask for it, but she got it all the same.

"And you were how old?" Clarke asked between peals of laughter, clutching at her stomach.

"Seven."

"And your sister?"

"Thirteen."

Clarke barked another shout of laughter. "Oh my god, your sister knew you were gay before you did."

Lexa rolled her eyes, leaning back against the mountain of pillows that the doctor had managed to acquire with the excuse that the princess should have all the comfort she could get. "In my defense, I was _seven_."

The blonde snorted, straightening in her chair and leaning against the edge of the bed on her elbows. "You seem very close with her."

"Anya is the best sister I can ask for." There was no doubt that Lexa truly thought so – her genuine tone and the light in her eyes at the mention of her sister. "She's first in line, the precious daughter, so there's more restrictions on her than on me. I joined the military and fought in the warzone. The farthest she could go in a warzone in the strategy camp or the hospital. But she never stopped protecting me."

"That's nice."

"I'll tell you a secret," Lexa whispered conspiratorially.

Clarke raised her brows and leaned her head forward to get in on the secret.

"You know Roan Queen?"

"Yeah."

Jerking back, Clarke's blue eyes went all kinds of alert as she trained them on the patient in bed, who only seemed smug in the information she had just given, not afraid at all that Clarke might sell it to the next tabloid in the morning. Mentally, she tabled away the fact that she had managed to gain the trust of a princess in less than twenty-four hours.

There were more important matters at hand.

"Seriously?" she gasped.

Lexa nodded.

The only thing Princess Anya of Polis had in common with Lexa was that they were both featured on every single 'hot' list – and that was it.

Unlike Lexa, the older Woods sibling was a much more publicized figure, though not as much as their parents. It came with the package of being first in line for the throne. She was elegant, courteous, compassionate, and approachable, not at all like Lexa. She rode horses; she visited orphanages regularly; she did interviews with press almost all the time.

There was nothing about Princess Anya of Polis, Duchess of Warlington, eldest child of the Polis Royal Family, that would indicate that she would ever be attracted to a person like Roan Queen.

As a matter of fact, Clarke met the guy once when he visited her hospital because apparently, family squabbles could end with a knife in the shoulder. He was one hell of an intimidating guy, resembling a ruffian if not for his well mannerisms when she had been treating him.

"No one except my family and his family know. They're planning on easing in the news when we get back, which will be earlier than expected."

"But he –"

"He's gentle as a bear."

"I don't think that's how it goes."

"He's gentle, is the point."

Clarke narrowed her eyes. "Are we still talking about Roan Queen?"

Lexa laughed and shook her head. "You have to know him to see his gentleness. I've never seen anyone as devoted to Anya as that man out there. There have been temptations everywhere for a diplomat like him. Brothels. Beautiful ladies looking to get a piece of a government official. But he never batted them an eye. He keeps a photo of Anya in his pocket all the time. Calls it his lucky charm. Says it keeps him alive. He's a goddamn sap."

Everything Clarke had heard did not match at all to the profile she had caught of the giant she had the fortune of meeting five years ago, as if no form of natural disaster could shake him away.

"Trust me, I'd be the first to call for his castration if he ever hurts my sister."

"I can only take your word for it."

"You should. I'm a princess."

* * *

"Have you ever met Meghan Markle or Kate Middleton?"

"In case you haven't noticed, I've been busy fighting in warzones."

* * *

"What's Beyoncé like?"

"Don't tell my mother, but Beyoncé is the queen-est of queens."

* * *

"What's a pretty doctor like you doing in a place like this?"

"Does that line really work?"

"Oh, you better believe it."

* * *

"So being a doctor runs in the family, huh?"

"Only my mother and me."

* * *

"Your brother's black."

"The whole world knows Lincoln is adopted."

"Is that even allowed?"

"The whole world knows that my family is pretty much the most unconventional Royal Family there is."

* * *

"How long does your tour last?"

"I'm actually five months away from being done with this one, which is my second. And then I think I'm calling it."

"And then what?"

"There's a trauma opening at Silver Hill Hospital."

"So home, then?"

"Seems like it."

* * *

One glance at the watch her father had given her before she hopped on the plane indicated that it was way past appropriate bedtime, and she was still on the fence about whether she should glad that she had a day off – courtesy of the adrenaline that accompanied her having to save the life of the woman on the bed in the same room as her.

On the bed she was leaning on, the princess was caught unaware to the world, and only then did Clarke realize how guarded Lexa had been when conscious. She hadn't expected their conversation to go so long – a doctor was supposed to encourage their patients to rest, after all – but she didn't regret it, remembering the anecdotes they shared and the easy laughter that drifted between them.

In a few hours, a royal helicopter would land on the rooftop and the only Prince of Polis would be escorting his sister out of this hospital, out of this warzone, out of this country. There was a certain sourness in her chest at the thought of that.

Mere hours between an off-duty doctor and the patient whose life she saved, just like that. They would go back to their lives – Clarke as a commoner trauma surgeon and Lexa as the intangible resident cooped up behind the gates of the majestic castle.

The blonde averted her gaze from the princess to the A4 paper she had snatched from the chart. Once it was empty, but now there was a rough sketch of the princess, peaceful and undisturbed. Clarke had seen many, many photos of Lexa, admired many, many facets of Lexa, but none of those compared to this side of Lexa that Clarke was privileged enough to see.

She folded the A4 paper into a small square and placed it on the bedside table, not sure if she really wanted the princess to see it. The chart laid on her lap as she jotted down notes for the hospital director and the physicians who would certainly the prince on his way here.

Then she stood up, adjusted the blanket over Lexa's chest, stared at her for a long moment, resisted the urge to lean down and kiss her forehead, and walked out the door with her hands tucked in her pocket and a strange sensation spreading over her torso.

* * *

"Dr. Griffin."

Clarke blinked rapidly, pausing in her hurried steps towards the hospital room she had abandoned thirty-six hours ago in favor of some rest. The _logos_ mode in her brain knew very well that the room would either be empty or occupied by another soldier, but she was only human, and her _pathos_ was urging her to just check it one more time.

She tried to fight the impatience and annoyance from making a physical appearance for the hospital director making his way down the corridor purposefully towards her. The expression on his face was confounded and confused, but he did not pause in his strides until he reached her.

"I'd like to congratulate you once again for the good work you have done with the Polis princess yesterday," he said, showing his Americanness with his lack of respect.

She nodded, shifting on her feet slightly to partially face him. "Thank you, Director. I was just doing my job."

"Prince…Lincoln – I believe was his name – came this morning with a team of doctors to fetch the princess home. Your notes in the chart were very detailed and the doctors wanted me to pass along their gratitude to you."

Fucking hell, this man talked like a goddamn sloth. She just stared at him expectantly as he looked back at her, kind of with a look of scrutiny, like he was trying to get a grip of her personality or something without saying a thing. He didn't seem to find what he was looking for as he just sighed and smiled at her again.

"Before their departure, the princess asked me to tell you that she's very thankful for the sketch." Clarke's eyes widened a little. So Lexa had noticed. "And she wanted you to have this." He handed over a paper folded into fourths.

"Oh."

Gingerly, she tucked one hand out of her coat pocket and took the letter. She stared at the paper for a long time, where she could see her name scribbled in elegant penmanship across the blank slate. The director cleared his throat and she saw that he was looking at her expectantly when she looked up.

Like hell she was going to share this with him. She just pocketed the paper and fought the sense of triumph when disappointment clouded over expectations.

"Thank you, Director. I should go check on my patients now."

"Of course, Dr. Griffin."

She hightailed it out of the lobby and hurried down several hallways until she found her favorite on-call room. A yelp sounded from one of the bunks when she crashed in, followed by a curse at her from Raven. She ignored her best friend, climbed up the top bunk, and unfolded the paper, delighting in the words that were revealed.

 _Dear Clarke,_

 _I was disappointed to see that you've disappeared when I woke up. My brother just isn't as attractive as the pretty blonde doctor who saved my life._

 _Nevertheless, I just want to extend a sincere thank you to you for doing that. I seemed to have forgotten my manners and neglected to do so when we were spending time together. I am in your debt._

 _I haven't had as much fun with anyone as I had with you in a really long time. Alas, I do realize that you only stayed at my request, and one couldn't just ignore a princess' request, even if the princess had been stuck in bed._

 _So thank you for staying with me and allowing me to forget, even for just a few hours. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did too._

 _Polis is a lucky country to have you as a devoted citizen._

 _May we meet again,  
Lexa_

* * *

 **yell at me about lesbians on my tumblr at overcanary or twitter at embettah**


	2. carpe noctem

**the feedback for the first chapter has been unbelievable! i didn't expect this story to gain as much love as it did when there was only one chapter - you guys are amazing. thank you! i hope you like this one as much as the last one.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

The Kingdom of Polis was not a big country. It was tiny in comparison to nations like the United States of America and Russia, but no one citizen would be as proud of their country as Polisians. Either first or second or third or at least top ten in education, gender equality, scientific breakthroughs, and human rights etc., Polis had managed to set for itself a significant seat in intergovernmental organizations across the world.

And as a Polisian herself, a royal born one at that, Lexa carried the same fondness for her country like any other Polisian. They would say she was biased, but she had gone to the United Kingdom for an exchange program when she was thirteen, had a liaison program with IMPACT in the US for two years at eighteen – her form of taking advantage of the brutal exposure of her sexuality by the media – started attending diplomatic events across the world at nineteen, and literally fought in wars from twenty to twenty-five. She had learnt to be unbiased and objective; she had also learnt that these so-called giant countries were the littlest of them all.

Nevertheless, it didn't mean that there wasn't room for improvement. There always was. And since Lexa could no longer be on active duty, much to the chagrin of only herself and no one else, she would make damn sure that she could still contribute to the advancement of this nation.

She read the thirtieth file from the stack that had been sitting at the corner of her desk since this morning. She absorbed the information offered in the file. She memorized the name of the wife and the kids. She considered the condition of the soldier's death that had resulted on this family's file ending up on her table in the first place. She studied the numbers and calculations for the funds that would be needed to ensure that they would be able to live comfortably and those kids would be able to have adequate education until high school, at least.

And she placed the file among the 'Yes' pile.

"Hey, kid," her father's voice interrupted her progress as he sauntered into her office as if it wasn't her office.

"I am twenty-five," she insisted, though a smile tugged on her lips as King Richmond made himself comfortable at the coffee table, sprawled across the couch and feet perched on the edge of the coffee table. "By all means."

"Hey, I'm the king."

She rolled her eyes. "Sure."

"What you up to?"

"What I've always been up to."

"I hope that's the 'No' pile," he said cheekily, pointing at the section that was definitely thicker than the other.

"If it makes you happier, then sure."

He didn't mean it, she knew that. When Lexa first suggested it at her first Parliament since her return, her father was the first one to give his approval. She barely got by with just a little more than the votes needed from the Parliament to get the program going, but she did it and here she was.

It probably helped that his daughter was a veteran herself. That he could have easily been one of those families who had to endure the news that his loved one had been injured on the field. That he was lucky enough to only have to visit her at the hospital and not her deathbed. That he was fortunate enough that he was the monarch and he could afford it all.

Those things didn't apply to most families out there – widows, parents, children. A lot of them could barely get by with the existing dependent indemnity compensation that the government had set up, meagre amounts that could only put enough food on the table at the expense of rental and electricity and clean water.

Just because Lexa was a princess didn't mean she forgot about those she fought with in the warzone. Just because she was fortunate enough to be born in this family didn't mean she had the privilege to forget about her people.

It was why she decided to involve herself in the Veterans' Agency and the Defense Department on a level where she would be able to help as much as she could without interfering with official politics. It was why she was so adamant to set up this program that could help in propelling surviving families of fallen soldiers to a brighter future than the one the government had promised.

"I've been talking to Gus," Richmond finally said, so lackadaisical that Lexa almost thought it was just something he wanted to bring up.

The brunette contemplated the statement, not really studying the file laid open on her desk. Her forefinger played with the edge of a page, curling it and uncurling it, placing a permanent mark on the flimsy material. A sigh escaped at the realization that there would be no further work done until this conversation was dealt with.

In all honesty, she had expected this to come. It had been six months since her return, three since her discharge, and one since her family took notice of her late night patterns. Honestly, she was rather surprised that it had taken them this long to even try this with her.

"You drew the short straw, huh?"

She poured a glass of bourbon and a glass of red wine from the bar, handing the bourbon to her father as she approached the coffee table and took a seat in the armchair.

"I always want to talk to my daughter."

"Not things like this," she said.

He blanched in guilt, finding the red of his wine all the more interesting. She never wanted this conversation. If possible, she would rather they just let her be, give her time, allow her the pace she had set for herself.

"Honey, you're aware that you are…the fifth most important person in this country," he started, gentle and wary.

"Wow."

The look he sent her was afflicted and unimpressed, quietly scolding her for not even letting up a step. "I haven't told your mother." She narrowed her eyes, unwilling to offer any word. "But I will if you keep it up."

And there it was. She chuckled and shook her head to herself, taking menial sips from her glass.

As she stared down at the liquid swirling around in the glass, she wondered if there would ever be a time where the paparazzi find her at an AA meeting or drunk off her ass on the streets. She wondered if there would ever be a time when she didn't have to think about it and feel guilty. She wondered if the guilt would ever go away.

Her father heaved a sigh. "You know, I delayed a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture to have this conversation with you."

"No one asked –"

"The least you could do is give me an indication that you're listening to me," he snapped.

Lexa didn't dare to look at her father, not when he employed that tone of his, peeved and tense. In all her life, she could count on one hand the number of times the king had been impatient and employed that tone at her, because Richmond Woods was born unflappable and fortitudinous. He took everything one step at a time, always prepared for the situations that couldn't be prepared for.

Of all the monarchs, King Richmond II was the favorite, either in the Parliament, the Council, or the people. The steps he had taken with the country far surpassed the democracy his ancestors built; the way he worked with the executive, legislative, and judicial structures were so smooth that there was word that it would be added as a constitutional amendment for easier work in the future.

Richmond studied his squirming daughter and grunted soundlessly as he clenched his jaw. "Sorry, I'm not –"

The giant hands that had been the one to cut her cord seemed so small now as they clenched on the arm of the couch he was sitting on.

"Kid, you were this big when I held you for the first time – all seven pounds and six ounces." He made a cradling shape with an arm and gestured at it. "You cried for two minutes and then you stopped, and that was the loudest you have ever been for the first two decades of your life." His lips twitched into a vague smile. "I remember being so afraid that you would never…be present," he struggled. "I'd heard so many stories about the youngest always being the loudest and demanding, but you'd never asked anything from your mother and me. You are there, but you're also quiet. You build little houses for stray puppies. You ride horses with your brother and sister. Your sister asks for a road trip to India and you ask for the latest copy of whatever journal that's caught your interest."

" _Planetary and Space Science_ is not 'whatever'," she pointed out.

He slapped the arm gently and then shoved a hand in her direction, like his point was just made. "Your mother and I were just waiting, you know, waiting for the day when you would be loud. And then you turned eighteen and you went even quieter when the whole world found out about your sexuality. And we thought that's probably just you. You are just the rarest youngest kid."

As he drifted off, his eyes only shone at her with so much adoration that she almost couldn't take it. It would be better if he could stop doing that. Or just leave and pretend this conversation never happened.

"But then you came into my office and practically summoned your mother and told us that you enlisted – that's when we figured out that you've never been quiet. You just pick your moments to be loud." There was a pause, and then he said, "You went away. You became the Commander by your own merits. That's the loudest you've ever been. And then you came back. And you made not a peep." His voice broke at the last word.

She eyed the thing leaning against her desk, so offensive in its presence yet so essential to her newfound daily life.

"I don't know, kid. Sometimes, I wonder if you'd be better back in Libya."

And those were the words that made her start wondering the same thing. Back in Libya, with cane and a trustworthy weapon and her comrades and the being far too busy to have nightmares and pretty blonde doctors – and without a cane.

* * *

Unlike the past countless nights when she had done the same thing, her parents sleeping in the room two hallways down niggled in her mind as she dressed herself in her coat and jeans and sweater.

Her father going to sleep knowing in the back of his mind that his daughter might do it again tonight as she tied her hair into a ponytail. Him keeping this a secret from his wife of thirty-five years as she pulled on a cap. The blatant ignorance she was displaying to his quiet plea before he left her study as she slipped out her bedroom, down the stairs, passed the winding hallways, through the kitchen, and out the backdoor.

She cursed when her alerted senses – thanks to the recurring nightmare that had woken her up in the first place and spurred her to get the hell out of the palace come hell or high water – drew her attention to Gus sitting on a stool by the backdoor, dressed in appropriate jacket and jeans and cap as well.

"Go home," she said.

He was just quiet as he stood up and zipped up his jacket. And then he just stared at her in anticipation, ready to go when she was.

"Why can't you be this quiet when my dad was asking you for gossip?"

The clench of his jaw was the only indication of his displeasure at her choice of words. Apart from that, Gustus remained mum, hands clasped behind his back and waiting for his charge to get up to her nightly activities.

"I tried," she said, not finding it odd at all that she had to explain herself to her bodyguard since she was six and learned how to climb trees in the courtyard. "For two hours, I tried."

With some sneaking and climbing and absolutely no more words exchanged between them, they were out of the castle and well into the city, reaching her favorite park – one that she came across during one of the initial nights of sneaking out. It was then that Gustus started keeping his distance from her, like he knew that she needed it without even asking.

She would have asked him, really. But asking him would be admitting that she had a problem, and Lexa did not have a problem. Therefore, she kept it to herself – the mortar rounds that flew over her head and in her dreams, the explosions that followed her from the Libyan grounds back to the palace, the cries of comrades that did nothing with bring more and more guilt that ensconced themselves into the very essence of her thoughts.

Every time she closed her eyes, she could see them, hear them, feel them. The stiffness in her left leg and the constant reminder of her disability in the form of the cane weren't much help either. So she got out of bed and she sneaked out the backdoor and she came to this park.

"Oh my god."

Lexa was struck out of her thoughts of kicking the cane with her bum leg. She looked at the direction of the voice and could only repeat, "Oh my god."

The pretty blonde doctor. The reason she got to keep her leg. The woman who managed to charm the youngest princess with her honesty and genuine laughter. The one thing that Lexa had restricted herself to think about only before bedtime because otherwise, she would never get anything done. That person, that Clarke, was sitting on a bench just a few feet away and gaping at Lexa like she'd just seen a ghost.

A long, _long_ pause settled between them, carried and dropped by passing birds, swishing with the leaves, and embracing them like an old friend. They took stock of one another, unable to look away. Green met blue despite the dimness of the night. And Lexa couldn't help but wonder if she could write another letter to truly feel out everything that was expanding everywhere at the sight of the blonde.

"This is so not fair," Clarke grumbled, and then groaned as she buried her face in her hands.

"Pardon?" Lexa asked while squaring away the fact that the blonde was too damn cute doing that.

The blonde removed her hands from her face and threw one in the general direction of the princess with a complete look of disdain. "It's not fair that you manage to look great no matter the situation."

Lexa cocked a brow when the words washed over in its completely unshielded meaning. The pride that rose in her – something she had only experienced twice; when she successfully asked Costia out and when she was promoted as Commander – was inevitable. She stopped herself from puffing a chest and crossing her arms and brushing her hair.

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

Clarke folded all her fingers back until a pointer finger was swirling in the air, still directed at the brunette. " _That._ "

"What?" Lexa asked, shrugging unknowingly, feeling a little too accused right now.

"Just don't look at me."

"Excuse me, I'm just trying to take a walk here."

The doctor went quiet for a bit, and they just kept staring at each other. And then the blonde began to portray a sideways smile, gentle and curious, and Lexa was suddenly thrown back to six months ago when she woke up in a hospital bed and heard a pretty blonde doctor addressing her as 'Your Highness'.

It was one of the best wake-up experiences that Lexa had ever had, despite the fading morphine and the ache in her left leg and the dryness in the back of her throat. Of course, she never told anyone that. Some things were better kept to herself.

"What are you doing wandering out here in Philly Park all alone, Your Highness?" Clarke asked.

Lexa rolled her eyes and shoved her hands in her pockets as she turned to face the blonde directly. "What did I tell you?"

"Oh, that still applies here?" Clarke seemed genuinely flummoxed at the aspect.

"It applies to whomever I make that request to, wherever and whenever."

Clarke nodded and then tried again, "What are you doing wandering out here in Philly Park all alone, Lexa?"

The veteran hid a smile at the sound her name escaping the blonde's name. That one rasp seemed enough to have her drop her walls and tell the doctor everything, but she had enough common sense to know that it was too early to confide in Clarke, even if she found the doctor to be utterly disarming with her natural poise.

She looked in the direction where Gustus was supposed to be at, and he had seemed to decide that the bench just few yards away was a perfect place to give them some bit of privacy. No doubt, he must have recognized the doctor – he hadn't been able to keep that teasing smile away for two weeks straight since she woke up to her brother's face and asked about Clarke. "

She turned back to the blonde and asked, "Mind if I sit?" One hand motioned at the empty space next to Clarke on the bench. Clarke nodded and Lexa made herself comfortable. "So you think I look great no matter what, huh?"

"You know what, I do mind that you sit. Get up. Stop sitting. It's my space."

Lexa laughed when Clarke mock shoved her in weak attempts to get her to stand up. "Hey, show some respect!" she mockingly demanded, tapping the stone ground with the cane, which of course got Clarke's attention.

As the doctor assessed the cane and then the leg she saved, Lexa almost wished the blonde would keep pushing her again, if only to avoid the conversation to come. Even though it was dark, with a crescent moon barely offering any illumination as a result of the clouds' interjection, Lexa could still the guilt slowly taking over the mischievous expression that had been on the blonde's face.

"I'm only using this cane because of you." The second she said it, Lexa knew it wasn't the right way to say it, which was only made worse when Clarke's face pretty much crumpled. Before it would descend into a worse state, Lexa quickly saved, "I mean, I wouldn't have a leg at all to need a cane if it _wasn't_ for _you_!" she exclaimed.

It obviously didn't help. Lexa wasn't a doctor, but anyone who was trying to achieve something would be understandably disappointed to find that their efforts didn't pan out. Plus, normally, Lexa wouldn't care about how a doctor would feel about their failed efforts, but there was something about disappointing Clarke that made it feel impossible.

She felt like she didn't ever want to be the one to make Clarke feel any less than what Lexa had felt that night in the hospital room. It was ridiculous; made absolutely no sense; yet the brunette adhered to it like it was her only obligation for the night, though she definitely didn't plan on running into the pretty blonde doctor when she sneaked out of the palace tonight.

"I've wondered about you, you know," Clarke stated, seemingly unable to keep her eyes away from the leg in question.

Lexa curbed away the delight at the idea of Clarke wondering about her. "Can you please stop looking at it?"

"I can't."

"Clarke."

"Your Highness."

" _Clarke_."

"Lexa."

"Did you get my letter?"

Of course, that would be what got Clarke to look away from the leg and back at the princess again. She didn't answer, but the blush that rose from her neck to her cheeks were rather telling.

"I hope you did. The Princess of Polis doesn't just write letters to anyone."

Clarke huffed, crossing her arms. "You can either be Lexa or the princess with me. You can't be both," she set the ultimatum.

The brunette blinked, slightly taken aback by the blonde's brazenness to even dare to give her an ultimatum. The only person's ultimatum that Lexa had obeyed was her mother's, and she didn't even bother with the last ultimatum the woman gave.

Still, the doctor was right. Her current train of thought was partially due to her accustomedness as a princess, a royalty, someone that everyone feared before they even had any real reason to – that was, until a thirteen-year-old Lexa had decided that the son of the Collins senator from the US was an annoying son of a bitch and she challenged him to a swordfight and pretty much almost put him in a hospital. They weren't even using real swords, but that little challenge and her rare display of blatant irritation had been enough to drive everyone at the edge of careful and fearful around her.

She didn't want to be two people with Clarke, that was one thing she knew for sure among other things that she didn't. The blonde had seen her at her weakest, could have used it as material for short-term popularity, but for six months, she had kept quiet about her venture into rescuing the princess, even when she had been back for one month already.

"I'll be Lexa, then," the princess decided, softly but certainly.

Clarke shot her a quizzical look, almost unnerved by the fact that Lexa had just relented to a commoner like her. And then she smiled, saying, "Good." She pulled up her knees so she could wrap her arms around them on the bench. "I still have it – the letter," she added.

The brunette kept her eyes on the doctor, but Clarke refused to look at her, choosing instead to stare at the untied laces of her sneakers. Lexa deposited her cane beside her on the bench before moving to kneel in front of the blonde while ignoring the bolts shooting up her bones with each miniature movement.

"Lexa, what –" Clarke stopped mid-breath as she watched Lexa doing her shoelaces.

"So we meet again." Lexa moved to the other sneaker, the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her lips as the chant her father taught her echoed in her mind.

"Yeah, we do."

Lexa stifled a groan as she straightened up to retake the seat she had vacated just now. "I don't know about you, but I think that's fate," she said cheekily, throwing the blonde a smirk.

"Is it?"

A hum of affirmation was released into the chilly night, heard only by the two of them and ignored by the hulking figure on the next bench. "Totally."

Clarke threw her head back with a sigh that sounded mockingly dejected, and then she turned to Lexa with a quizzical quirk to her lips, mischievous and anticipatory. In the face of this blonde personification of everything that Lexa would never have expected in her wildest dreams, Lexa was suddenly at a loss for a proper reaction.

"And what shall we do with this fate thing?" Clarke asked.

Lexa sucked in a deep breath, casting another look at her childhood bodyguard who was smoking a stick of cigarette where he was. She made a note to have a good talk with him about that particular bad habit before standing up and steadying herself with the cane while crooking an arm for Clarke.

"I think you should let me walk you home. It's unbecoming for young talented lady like yourself to be out here alone."

There was a scoff, as expected. But Clarke played along anyway and placed a hand on the crook. Lexa tugged it closer to her body before they started walking down the direction that Clarke had pointed to.

"And then you can tell me all about how unfair you think it is that I look great no matter the circumstances."

"Lexa!"

* * *

It was almost three hours since Lexa slipped out that she finally made her way back to the backdoor of the palace. At the approaching hours of dawn, she could already hear some staff making noises in the courtyard, the stables, and the garages. She reminded herself to talk to her father about giving their hardworking staff a raise, if not a break.

Which, speaking of the devil – she pointed a finger behind her. "You need to let him sleep," she announced, shouldering past the patriarch of the kingdom into the kitchen.

Richmond snorted, following his daughter into the kitchen and nodding when she gave him a questioning look. She started the coffee machine and sat across from him at the island, watching as Gustus finally walked away back to his home for a few hours of sleep before the routine repeated itself.

" _You_ need to let him sleep," the king retorted.

"Hey, I could have easily just gone out on my own and I'd be fine."

Her father rolled his eyes. "There's no way I'm letting my princess daughter wander out alone in the middle of the night just because she refuses to talk to her family."

"Did you forget I was also a high ranking member of the military? I have the medal and all that shit."

"Only because you're my daughter."

Lexa exhaled a gasp that lasted longer than a gasp should. She glared at her father and ignored the beeping noise of the coffee machine that indicated the completion of its process. Pointing a finger at him, she demanded, "You take that back right now, Richmond Woods the Second."

He shook his head, sliding off his stool to pour the coffee. "My daughter just full-named me. Children these days are so insolent," he muttered. The next few seconds were spent ingesting caffeine, both of them well aware that they would not be going back to sleep for the next twenty hours or so. "Have you thought about what I said?"

"I met a girl." It probably wasn't the best way to change the subject, but she was willing to indulge her family's creepy investment in her relationships in favor of _not_ talking about her inability to sleep properly.

"You're awful."

Lexa smirked, knowing full well why her father looked so uncertain. There was a silent competition between him and his wife – something about being the first to know about anything related to their children gave them great sense of joy; it was something they loved to boast about during special days like birthdays and Christmas, and none of the children, for the life of them, could understand why.

Right now, he was probably struggling between jumping for joy at being the first to know that Lexa had met a _girl_ and keep talking about his concerns for his daughter. She hoped that the news she had given him was powerful enough to deviate him from their original subject, at least for a little while.

"Did you really meet a girl when you're out in the middle of the night?"

Lexa thought about the question, recalling the surprise and the disbelief and the utter joy at seeing the pretty blonde doctor again. The easygoingness between them hadn't dissipated even though six months had passed. In the back of her mind, she could still bring about the image of Clarke's smile and the blue of her eyes and the mischievousness that seemed to accompany her whenever she was relaxed enough.

Her elbow tingled from the touch that had stayed there for the half hour it took for Lexa to walk the blonde home. She resisted the urge to look at the space, knowing it would be ridiculous to look for handprints on the material of her wool jacket. She recalled the reluctance they both displayed when they reached the bottom of the apartment building.

And Lexa made sure to find out if Silver Hill was still Clarke's choice of employment place.

"She's a doctor," Lexa decided.

* * *

 **so? what do you think? leave me a lot of comments :)**


	3. fac et spera

**hah! and chapter three is here and our favorite two best friends show up and it's as fluffy as ever**

 **listen, like i said, i'm bad with fluff, so take it with a grain of salt, okay?**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

As a trauma attending in Silver Hill Hospital, it was a given that Clarke had a schedule that fluctuated at the last second with only a 50% guarantee that she could stick to her shifts as assigned. Not that it really mattered; she actually rather appreciated it, because treating a stripper pole sticking out of a man was better than saving solders whose lives were mostly hanging on a thread.

But Clarke had come to appreciate sleep as much as the next person, and she had never failed to chastise herself for not thanking her parents enough for forcing her on naptimes. Case in point, she had barely gotten five hours of sleep when she was woken up by the sound of her door banging open and followed by a series of footsteps that cared not enough for her need for slumber.

In her sleep addled mind, she had an idea who it was – or were, as it went. She wanted to kill them.

Still, she was rational enough to know that if it wasn't because of her spontaneous late night wandering into Philly Park earlier, she would have gotten more hours of sleep. Be that as it may, she didn't regret it, because that singular spontaneity had led her to a reunion with an individual who had haunted her more than necessary since six months ago.

Nevertheless, while she herself was to blame, it didn't give her intruders permission to just barge into her place whenever they felt like it. They had been doing it since she came back and signed the lease for the place, and she had been as displeased every one of those times as she was right now.

Clarke opened her eyes a little, allowing a small smile to creep on her face as she recalled everything that had occurred from the moment she clocked out of her shift to when she reached her doorstep. The banter that picked up from where they had left it at hospital. The gentleness and wit that couldn't be found on the internet. The appreciation for the ability to use a goddamn _cane_. The tiny quirk constantly tugging on those kissable lips as the owner interacted with the doctor.

Since six months ago, the image of Lexa Woods all casual and kind of a hot mess in a hospital bed had been ingrained in her brain, and Clarke couldn't replace that image with a much nicer photograph on Google even if she wanted to. That image had, shamefully, served as material for some dirty dreams. Clarke had spent at least two days a week wondering if the princess made it okay, if the princess still remembered her, if there was ever a chance they would meet again.

The letter that Lexa had left behind was sitting on a mantel over the chest in her bedroom, clad in a nice frame she picked up from Ikea when she was furniture shopping. Every night, she would look at it and believe once again that she and the princess of her country had been friends for at least a night.

And now, _now_ , she had one other image of Lexa Woods that nobody else, except for the scary bodyguard, got to have. One of her in a hoodie and a pair of skinny jeans and a Red Sox baseball cap, with a relaxed smile and a flirtatious glint in those green eyes. Playful and loose.

"Griffin!" She startled out of her reverie when two voices shouted from the doorway and human weights proceeded to join her in her bed.

She cursed and yelped as a knee dug into her waist and a finger nearly poked her in the eye as those two humans scrambled to find stability on the bed. "What the _fuck_ ," she cried when one of them tugged on her hair momentarily.

"There's a princess outside."

Clarke blinked the sleep out of her eyes and stared at Octavia in confusion – Raven's head was perched over her shoulder. "What?" she whispered, thinking that perhaps they had lost it.

Octavia shoved her while Raven shoved an arm towards the door. "A _princess_ ," they hissed in unison.

"Oh my god, wake the fuck _up_ ," Octavia snapped, starting to snake her arms under Clarke's armpits and dragging her to sit upright, only encouraged by Raven's murmurs while completely ignoring the blonde's protests. "Listen, Lexa Woods – yes, that Princess Alexandria _fucking_ Woods – just apologized to us for interrupting our morning _and then_ asked us if it would be convenient to ask _you_ if you're willing to meet her outside." All the while, Raven was just nodding viciously while throwing wary glances towards the door. "What the _fuck_ is going on?"

Listen, she had a total of _four_ hours of sleep – one couldn't blame her for taking a little longer than necessary to truly absorb the information that had just been shoved into her face by her two best friends.

Nevertheless, as soon as she had comprehended the gravity of everything Octavia had just said, any sign of sleep was forgotten, replaced only by disbelief and panic as she scrambled out of bed, not even caring that the two intruders had toppled out of bed along with her, and got dressed. She checked herself in the mirror, trying to make the best out of her irreparable bedhead, and popped a mint into her mouth.

"What did you tell her?" she hissed, tucking on her slippers and tripping out of the bedroom.

"What do you mean what did we tell her?" Raven snapped, finding her footing faster than Octavia despite the fact that she was the crippled one out of the three of them. "There's a princess at your door, Clarke!" As if to emphasize her point, the Latina just pointed an angry finger at aforementioned door as she followed the blonde out.

"Oh fuck," Clarke muttered under her breath and placed her hand around the knob.

"We better hear some good –"

The door opened and indeed, Lexa was standing right there, overcoat on with a well-ironed light blue button down and a pair of skinny jeans underneath. Completely put together and completely unlike her appearance just hours ago.

"– explanation later when you're done with the princess!" The rest of that sentence was muffled by a hastily slammed door.

For the second time in only so many hours, the doctor found herself gaping at the princess, still finding the fact that the _Princess of Polis_ had been within a mile of her vicinity _three times_ rather unreal. She brushed her hair and placed a hesitant hand on the door and brushed her hair again and blinked a few times, while her mouth just opened and closed repeatedly.

"Your friends are…interesting," Lexa commented, obviously offering Clarke an olive branch as she tried very hard not to smirk at the blonde's inability to form words.

"Yeah, I –" Clarke swallowed and frowned at Lexa. "Did you even sleep?"

"I had coffee with my dad."

Clarke decided to bypass the fact that Lexa just called the King 'dad' and furrowed deeper. "But you slept."

"I closed my eyes in the shower if that counts."

" _Lexa_."

"Just because you saved my life once upon a time doesn't mean you get to advise me on my sleeping pattern."

Clarke huffed, shaking her head and crossing her arms. "As a certified doctor myself, I simply cannot condone this behavior."

"You look cute by the way."

"There are literally researches out there that –"

Clarke cut herself off, frozen in place, as Lexa simply stared at her with that mischievous smile and that mischievous glint in those eyes. It was said in such a careless manner that the blonde had almost just totally ignored it so she could rant about scientific researches and sleeping patterns and extended lifespans.

Not that the princess of her country living longer wouldn't be a good thing – it would most likely do the world wonders – but Clarke was shallow enough to prioritize the princess calling her cute over her lifespan. It could be treasonous, but she was also quite sure that not a lot of people was called cute by the one and only Lexa Woods.

Plus, as she gawked back at the brunette, there was a moment where doubts came in about how many other people had seen this look on Lexa before. Entirely unabashed and shameless, so unlike the image that had been portrayed on magazine spreads and newspaper clippings.

Clarke shook her head, chastising herself for being so damn weak in the face of a pretty girl. Sure, said pretty girl was another level of beautiful, but that was beside the point. She herself was a certified _doctor_ with a colorful repertoire under her name and a medal hanging on her mantel; there ought to be more decorum than what she was showing right now.

"I'm wearing yesterday's clothes and –" she glanced down "– _fuzzy bunny slippers_." If there was a time machine so she could have the chance to change her shoes, it would be pretty useful right about now.

"Yeah, I know."

"If only the rest of the world knows you're this charming."

"Gus knows. Gus is the rest of the world." Lexa carelessly gestured down the corridor, where Clarke had just noticed stood a foreboding figure.

"You need to let him sleep."

"Tell my dad that."

Ignoring the casual remark once again, Clarke sighed as she noticed that this conversation had gone entirely way off point. "Side note: Gustus is the not the rest of the world. The rest of the world does not look like the bear that's ready to tear down your tent in the middle of the night and eat you up."

"You sound like you have experience with that," Lexa commented, tilting her head with her eyes narrowed in curiosity.

Clarke was pretty sure she had never worked as hard at anything as her effort to not get bogged down by how absolutely adorable Lexa looked like this. "Your sleeping pattern and your giant bodyguard aside," she began, "what are you doing back here?"

And it was then that the confident façade disappeared like water washing away; in its stead were fidgeting fingers and darting eyes and lip licking. Good to know that maybe the princess didn't have as much game as Clarke had first thought. Gave her a little bit more edge in this department. Made her feel a little less inadequate.

Maybe she could play this game too. That was, only if she wanted to. She still wasn't sure. It wasn't everyday that you went out to a war and come back having saved a royalty's life and calling said royalty by her first name. Clarke was thankful that she had remembered to pick up some Ben & Jerry's over the weekend.

"I forgot to ask for your number."

Clarke blinked slowly. "You missed sleep just so you can come all the way out here to ask for my number?"

"Don't be absurd. Your place isn't that far away. I just don't sleep." Before the blonde could pursue the subject further, Lexa bustled on with determination, as if she knew that Clarke would hook onto it. "I actually wanted to show up at your hospital, but then I realized I couldn't wait that long, so here I am. Plus, I think it'd probably be much worse if I just show up at your hospital. I imagine you wouldn't want paparazzi to just pop up and interrupt your workspace." When Clarke didn't say anything, Lexa smiled sheepishly with a shrug. "I really like talking to you, Clarke."

"You're the princess, Lexa. I'm pretty sure you can easily get your hands on my number without purposely making a trip out here."

"Yes, but that wouldn't be very sincere of me, would it?"

"What a goddamn charmer."

"Thank you." Lexa winked and Clarke almost asked for a pen right there. "Also, I'm not a tyrant. I want to have your number with your consent. If you ask me to leave right now, I will."

Clarke sighed. "What am I going to do with you, Your Highness?"

"You could start with giving me your number." Lexa paused, glancing at her bodyguard doubtfully, who was still expressionless in the distance. But the brunette must have seen something there, as she turned back to Clarke with more resolution than before. "Only if you want to, of course."

Clarke asked for a pen. Lexa signaled for Gustus. He made his way down the corridor and gave Clarke a look that was half dirty and half amused, like he couldn't believe his charge had resorted to this kind of flirting and he would slit her throat the next second if she even tried something.

Honestly, Clarke could hardly believe this was happening right now. She wanted to say stranger things had happened, but that would be a lie. No stranger things had happened. This was the strangest thing that had ever happened.

Nevertheless, the fact that the second Princess of Polis only had one bodyguard was also strange. But as Clarke found herself being smiled at gratefully by said princess, she decided it was a conversation for another time. She hadn't been sure if there would be another conversation, but now that the princess was leaving her _building_ with her number, there wasn't any doubt about it anymore.

* * *

"Didn't the sister just announce her engagement with Roan Queen?"

"I have rounds, Raven."

"I can't believe I didn't notice that letter until today."

"Yeah well, you can be pretty self-absorbed, Octavia."

"Are you going to be at the royal wedding?"

"That's not relevant."

"What do you mean it's not relevant? It's the royal wedding!"

"Don't you have drips to change and patients to coddle?"

"They're not relevant right now."

"Imagine how proud Sydney would be to have trained a nurse like you."

"Holy shit, do you know her brother?"

"Let me do my rounds in peace."

"You know, you're not being very nice, letting a cripple run after you like this."

Clarke only snorted and swerved into a patient's room where her friends wouldn't follow her. They had jobs to do. When she was done later, she was sure that they would be gone and she'd be able to escape their incessant questioning for a few more hours. Briefly, she wondered if Wells would mind that she break into his apartment tonight.

Never mind that. It wasn't important right now. Speaking of important, she displayed a bright smile on her face and greeted the patient, "Good evening, Mrs. Lang. How are we feeling today?"

And that was how it went for the rest of the evening, extending well into the wee hours of the morning. The ER was as its usual. Traumas came and went. She treated some cuts and bruises, bought a kid who was waiting for her mother a lollipop from the vending machine, judged another kid for drinking too much on a Wednesday night that he landed in here with alcohol intoxication, and made her rounds.

All the while, her phone was kept on silent because she had been glancing at it a little too many times since this morning and it was a form of distraction that a trauma attending like her couldn't afford to have, even though there had been absolutely no distraction at all, which was a distraction in and of itself.

Clarke kept telling herself that the woman was part of the royal family, so she surely had her duties to attend to. She had been hearing about Lexa's involvement with the Defense Department and Veterans' Agency, about the things she had been doing for veterans' families and non-returning solders' loved ones, so yeah, Lexa was off doing great stuff, busy giving out money and providing educational opportunities to poor kids.

Still, Clarke was nothing but a mere human woman, and when she gave out her number, she expected the person she gave it to _text_ her.

She was on her second break in her 48 hour shift, sipping on her coffee in the on-call room, when her phone buzzed. No one was in here with her, so she wasn't afraid to admit that she leaped for it in anticipation, only to drop in disappointment once she saw that it was Raven asking where she was. Before she could stop herself in her moment of deliriousness, she revealed her location, only to realize her mistake.

She could only sigh to herself at this point. And she had been doing so well in avoiding the two monsters since she ditched them just now.

The door unceremoniously banged open ten minutes later, and tottered two ungraceful women who hissed to each other about elbows and knees. Clarke watched as Raven and Octavia argued about _closing the door_ and then finally closing it before looking at her in anticipation.

She shrugged. "I don't know what you want, honestly. I've told you everything."

Raven scoffed, limping over to the bed and taking up the space that Clarke had moved over for her. "You've told us barely anything. I saw you rescue the princess that one time in Libya – I didn't know you became best friends with said princess." She grumpily unclasped the brace and tossed it to the side, one hand absentmindedly massaging the muscles.

"When's the last time you saw Jackson?" Clarke asked, gesturing at the leg.

"Two Sundays ago. Don't change the topic." The Latina huffed in appreciation when Octavia dragged over a chair to sit on it and placed her leg on her lap, taking over the massaging. "Is she good?"

"Good at what?"

Raven threw her a deadpanned look, unimpressed. "Sex."

"We did not have sex!" Clarke whisper-shrieked, smacking her best friend in the arm. "Oh my god, she's a princess, Raven!"

"Doesn't mean she's dry as a Sahara desert down there. I'm pretty sure Prince Harry didn't stay celibate as a bachelor just because he's a prince," Raven easily retorted, waggling her eyebrows for good measure.

"We are not talking about Lexa's sex life right now. I feel like that's ground for treason or something."

Raven made a sound – the sound she usually made when she made a breakthrough with her latest pet project, triumphant and proud. She shared a look with Octavia, who was seemed pretty giddy herself. "She calls the princess _Lexa_."

"You two are children." Clarke placed her phone facedown on the table, determined not to look at it as she turned to face her friends. "Look, I treated her in Libya. We talked. I haven't seen her since she came back and then I came back. And then we just ran into each other in the park last night. And that was that."

"I can't believe you went to the war and flirted with a princess. I should have gone with you," Octavia complained.

Raven emitted a noise of agreement, followed quickly by a long moan of approval, which only threw the three of them into giggle fits. The number of times this had happened with the three of them in the same room, some of them Raven did on purpose, Clarke was afraid to think about how many interns and nurses thought that they indulged in their own threesomes in the hospital on-call rooms.

Well, it wasn't like they did anything to stop the rumor mill. They denied the notion the first week, but since the interns were still talking about it and the nurses were still whispering about it after, Raven came out with the great idea of just going along with it. If the rumors wouldn't stop, might as well have a little fun with it.

And really, since Clarke and Octavia accidentally saw Raven place Nicolas Cage photo on all the toilet seats in the west wing restroom in junior year, they had pretty much resorted themselves to Raven's occasionally-reluctant partners in crime. Plus, watching the nurses' or interns' faces in horror when they eventually emerged from the on-call room was rather awesome.

Honestly, Clarke had only been back a month and she was already roped into this little shenanigan. To think that a Princess of Polis came all the way out to her apartment, without any sleep no less, for her number.

* * *

 _Unknown (2:35a.m.): Busy?_

What was that people always said about assuming? Well, given that Clarke had forgotten about it, it gave her license to ignore it. Even though it was probably unsafe and dangerous and she might end up getting kidnapped or worse.

 _Clarke (2:37a.m.): not even halfway thru my 48hr shift_

Raven and Octavia might have clicked their tongues at her in disapproval had they known how wide she had smiled and how clammy her palms had become when she saw the text. But alas, they had ditched her – one for home and the other to finish up her own shift – and so they were not around to bear witness to her moment of schoolgirl delight.

Her phone vibrated in her hand as soon as an intern rushed up to her with a chart and a litany of questions on his lips. This was a teaching hospital, she understood that. Part of her responsibilities was to teach these interns, she also understood that. Raising these interns to be doctors like her should make her feel proud, she understood that as well.

Under normal circumstances, she would have been happy to indulge. But it was wee hours in the morning where the sky was still dark and she had been waiting for this text for more than eighteen hours. She had been waiting for _something_ for more than eighteen hours.

And now that she had something, this tiny innocent little intern just decided to get in the way of her joy like he had any right to do that.

"Leave her alone," Octavia popped up out of nowhere to drag the intern away. As she ignored the intern's protests, she threw the blonde a look that meant it wasn't an assist given freely.

Clarke was grateful nonetheless. She made sure that the emergency room was dealt with and she wasn't needed. If they needed her, they could page her. With that in mind, she ducked into a conveniently empty bay and drew the curtains before sitting on the bed.

 _Unknown (2:37a.m.): Sounds brutal.  
Unknown (2:37a.m.): I think we should talk about your lack of self-preservation in terms of texting unknown numbers. _

_Clarke (2:44a.m.): no one texts me at midnight except my stupid best friends and sometimes my mother lexa_

 _Lexa (2:45a.m.): I'm not sure I want to be one of your stupid best friends._

She stuck a tongue out the corner of her lips, fingers ready to tap out a smartass answer, only to be stopped by another grey bubble popping up.

 _Lexa (2:45a.m.): And I meant that in a kind of non-platonic way._

Her heart stopped.

 _Lexa (2:45a.m.): Please tell me if I'm making you uncomfortable.  
Lexa (2:46a.m.): Because I can stop._

Fingers frozen marginally over the screen, the organ between her ears that served as the center of her nervous system could, in no coherent way, find a coherent answer to that message that wouldn't make her sound like an incoherent idiot. Clarke gently put the device facedown next to her on the bed and propped her elbows on knees as she buried her face in her hands.

Once again, she wondered if this was even a good idea at all. Should she even encourage this liaison? Maybe it would be more helpful if she just cut it off right there and then, when she still wasn't in too deep and found herself lost, when she could still see a way out of the tunnel – albeit the light seemed a little too far away now.

Clarke had managed to grow up sensibly and sanely under Abigail Griffin's shadow as one of the most accomplished surgeons in Polis, a woman who was currently chairing an up and coming international medical commission. She had been among the top ten in all her classes since she entered pre-school. Her medical degree was obtained through four hardworking years in Mayo Clinic and then another two years of houseman-ship before she was shipped off to Libya for two years as an army doctor. Hell, she had even _had_ to save a princess' life with mediocre equipment and in a barely sterile operation theatre.

 _That_ should be the most difficult thing that Clarke had had to experience. Hell, any of those appeared plenty difficult. And yet, the doctor was stumped by a charming royalty who wasn't really even asking for anything but friendship and possibly – _if_ Clarke wanted to.

Which was exactly why Clarke picked up the device and typed her reply.

 _Clarke (3:00a.m.): maybe u're not_

 _Lexa (3:02a.m.): Maybe I'm not what?_

 _Clarke (3:02a.m.): one of my stupid best friends_

 _Lexa (3:06a.m.): Good to know._

Because despite her status as a princess, the authority she had because of her parents and her birthplace and the blood tracing her every cell, Lexa had never shown any sign of abusing that power – be it with Clarke or with the public. Everything that Lexa had said, since that night at the hospital until this morning, had been with utmost respect and never failed in asking for consent.

Clarke had met one too many entitled assholes in her life. She trusted Lexa not to be one.

And truth be told, she was already in too deep since the princess insisted on being addressed as 'Commander' while they were still in the warzone. The light at the end of the tunnel had long been snuffed out, and Clarke could only submit herself to this unknown territory and hope for the best.

* * *

 **lexa? charming. clarke? smitten. they're both screwed :) also, guys, i'm in a little bit of cinch here - actually, more like a cinch, and i could really use your help, so if you would please go to my tumblr at overcanary to see how you can help me, i'd be very appreciative :)**


	4. bellum omnium in omnes

**holy shit an update in a week - i have surprised myself. well, i've written it and it is here, so might as well. one of you asked me last time how long it takes me to update and i can honestly just say: i don't know. i never know. all i can say is that i'll update when i update.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

"I cannot believe you!"

Thankfully enough, Lexa had enough training in the military to remember the most important part of being intruded – remain calm and observe as many points of escape and attack within the first five seconds. She didn't jump; she didn't yelp; she showed no sign of being surprised at being intruded in the middle of the afternoon so suddenly.

Instead, she just recalled the most efficient way to unlock the window and the best method to get out the door with minimal injury. She eyed the best non-lethal weapons in the room and strategized how best to utilize these weapons. Her non-dominant hand sneaked under her desk to grip the gun she had hidden in a compartment when she had first returned.

The tension and wariness and general distrust dissolved once she took note of _who_ exactly had decided to barge into her office just like that. Her fingers relaxed from around the gun. The tightness of her facial features loosened into a mildly annoyed expression. Her eyes tracked Anya from the door to the bookshelf – her sister who was entirely unaware of the fact that Lexa might have pulled a gun on her had she been a more paranoid individual.

Not that Lexa was ever going to tell them that. Any of that.

The younger sister watched the white knuckled grip she had on the pen, almost with an outsider perspective, curious and bemused. She allowed another moment for her brain to catch up – the peace, the lack of guns and bullets, the needlessness to look over her shoulder at every second of the day – and then she stood up, abandoning the pen and massaging her knuckles absentmindedly.

"Elaborate, please," she retorted as she made her way behind the bar. "Bourbon?"

"God no." Anya spun around to look at her with mildly disguised disgust. "How do you drink that stuff?"

"You get what you get in the army." It sounded so casual, like she didn't give a shit, which was exactly what Lexa was aiming for.

Once Anya got her red wine and Lexa had her bourbon, they got themselves settled at the table set. Lexa stared mournfully at her desk full of paperwork, knowing that there was no way that she would be able to finish it all up if her sister had her way. And Anya always had her way.

"I just came back from my trip and had breakfast with our loving parents. And did you know the first thing our dearest father told us?"

She should probably not feel so delighted about this, but there was a reason that she and her father were so close. They both shared the same sense of childish humor with the capability of dealing with the most serious issues in the blink of an eye. And she had always enjoyed his need to be smug about the most mundane of things.

They went out on a nighttime walk once, Gustus and Ryder trailing behind them, with a whole team of secret service posing as commoners to watch out for them. It was two nights before her dispatch, and she asked him why that was. And he simply told her that as the royalty, there were things that they simply couldn't enjoy like the common people, such as walking on the streets at night with his daughter, so he just wanted to find delight in anything he could, such as knowing something stupid about anyone in his family before anyone else in said family did.

"You told our father about a girl you met before you told your own sister and mother!" Anya accused, appearing completely offended. "What is wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry I'm his favorite."

"He's a man."

"Anya Woods, are you being sexist right now?" Lexa gasped in mock offense. "Our parents did not raise us to be –"

"Don't you start that with me," Anya growled, pointing a finger at her.

Lexa had to laugh. Before she could answer though, it was hard to miss Lincoln's gigantic form strolling into the room, carrying an amused look on his face. Nice to know he wasn't as offended as her sister was, but not so nice to know that she still had no privacy even after years of being away.

"Okay, how did I miss this breakfast?" she pointed out as her brother proceeded to treat himself with a glass of scotch from _her_ bar. "And get your own drinks!"

"You already had breakfast before any one of us was up," Lincoln simply answered as he settled next to the eldest on the couch. "Mom's coming, by the way."

"Oh my g –"

"Alexandria Woods!"

Her mother's shriek was followed closely by her father's evil cackles as he trailed her footsteps.

"Get out!"

She stood up, placing her tumbler on the coffee table and pointing at the door, as she glared at her family who just decided that barging into her office was just _okay_ now. Her father's cackles stopped halfway and her mother startled back a step at her volume; they were all gaping at the youngest Woods, unused to her raising her voice even a fraction, let alone _yell_.

She squeezed her eyes shut and counted to ten in her head while also reciting the range of weapons that were used by all armed forces in Polis alphabetically – a calming method taught by a senior sergeant when she was deployed in Iran. She would always be grateful for him for teaching her this, because there was no way she would have been able to soldier through all the crowds and the noises without placing the barrel of a gun in her mouth.

When she opened her eyes, they were all still gaping at her, though no longer as bemused. Alternatively, all she could discern on their faces were concern and bewilderment, which weren't much better.

Shit.

Lexa took a few deep breaths and avoided their eyes while her fingers carded through her hair, only to remember that she had it tied into a ponytail. She shook her hands by her side and when that didn't stop the shaking, she just shoved them into her pockets. She mustered a reassuring smile at them.

"Sorry, I just…" Drifting off, she realized she didn't know how to explain the outburst. "I didn't mean to do that."

"Honey –" Queen Storme hesitated and then approached her daughter until she had Lexa's face in her hands "– are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay, Mom." Despite that, Lexa still reached up to hold onto her mother's wrists – and Lexa was never a tactile person.

It was an indicative enough of a movement that Storme looked over her shoulder to share a look with her husband. Lexa pretended she didn't see that; pretended that her sister didn't seem all too perturbed at her outburst; pretended that her brother wasn't staring at her like she was a total stranger.

She had been pretending for six months to spare her family the details; she could pretend more. God willing, she'd pretend for the rest of her life if it meant that the people close to her wouldn't realize the gravity of her experience when she was overseas.

One swift movement extracted her from her mother's gentle grip and put suitable distance between herself and her family. She couldn't help but cast a chaste glance at her desk, where the gun was still secured. She offered them another reassuring smile, hoping earnestly that they would let it go.

"I'm really sorry," she said. "I was just working and it was getting a little too noisy and I snapped. I'm sorry."

"Lexa –"

"This girl is still…new." Lexa fought a shudder at the thought of Clarke. _God_ , there was no better word to describe her than 'new'. "I don't really know her quite well yet, but I like her." She didn't have to hide the smile, or act like the smile was anything other than one of enjoyment.

Hopefully, this tactic would work on the rest of them just as it did with her father. Distract them for a little longer while she used the extra time to pull herself together. If anything, this smile should tell them she was working her way towards it. What exactly, she wasn't sure yet, but something better than this.

"I'd really appreciate it if you just let me see where it goes before bombarding me with questions I can't answer."

"Of course, honey," the matriarch of the house said before any of them could butt in, who added on with a stern stare at her children and her husband. "Go with your own pace." Storme's fidgeting fingers and twitching cheek were indicative of her desire to say more, maybe ask more. But thankfully, she just took a deep breath and smiled at her daughter. "We'll just leave you to it."

Lexa nodded, clenching her hands into fists in her pockets. Watching the door close behind Lincoln almost felt like that lightness whenever they defused an accidental IED planted by an insurgent in the tracks – Lexa hated it.

* * *

After making sure that the bill of her cap was tugged low enough to conceal her face, Lexa entered the McDonald's three blocks away from the palace and heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that there was barely anyone in the establishment. Plus, the ability to place an order on the electronic stations made it easier for her to hide herself and not risk exposure.

"They should make McDonald's breakfast an all-day thing," she remarked glumly into the phone pinned between her head and her shoulder.

"It's a thing in Australia," Clarke replied with a laugh.

"Well, we're not in Australia."

But of course, the universe had to play with her a little bit and the boy recognized her despite the cap when he handed over her order. And for the next few seconds, Lexa watched as he choked on his own saliva and made comical noises that she thought could only be heard in cartoons.

Clarke hummed and Lexa ignored the flutter in her stomach at the sound distorted over the phone. "I don't know. I think I'd take Polis over Australia, even if we don't have all-day McDonald's breakfast."

Lexa allowed him a few seconds to gather himself before she smiled at him and pressed a finger to her lips. To maximize effects, she added on a wink for good measure.

Because even when she was a big damn lesbian and there was no way she'd be interested in him, she had also learned that a lot of people didn't much care for it. They just saw her looks and swoon for her, regardless of her sexuality, and she wasn't ashamed to admit that she had used it to her advantage many times in the past – and definitely many times in the future.

"Well, you're too kind," Lexa said cheekily, biting her lip unintentionally.

"You're not the government."

As expected, he just swallowed and nodded eagerly with a sheepish smile. She figured he deserved something for not automatically propelling himself into five minutes of Twitter fame by announcing her presence in his McDonald's, so she easily plucked the pen from his shirt pocket over the counter and signed her name on a tissue paper.

She stuck her tongue out at the disapproving stare Gustus was sending her as they walked out of the establishment with her order in hand. She glanced up at the sky and allowed an inadvertent smile to appear when she saw the stars sprinkling the dark expanse – a sight for sore eyes, as it were.

"Excuse me, I will have you know that this nation is one of a kind."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know." Lexa could practically hear Clarke's eyes roll. "It's all collaborative and there's no excluding any particular governmental force. I know."

"Good to know you studied."

"I had to." There was scuffling and a few grunts over the connection; Lexa slowed her stride when she neared a particular bench, nodding at Gustus before sitting down and placing the McDonald's paper bag beside her. "I couldn't very well send myself into a warzone – albeit, it was a military hospital – without knowing anything about _why_ I'm entering the warzone."

"Hey, military hospitals are important. I would know."

Clarke was quiet for awhile, and Lexa imagined she probably wasn't expecting Lexa's answer.

To be honest, the brunette herself wasn't sure what had gotten into her. She had never been this outright and brazen – _never_. Sure, she was proactive and she was good at leading, but when it came to relationships, she was always the one being approached and not the one doing the approaching. Lexa Woods just wasn't a people person.

Even when she first gotten together with Costia, it was Costia who sidled up to her with a glass of champagne and a tray of hors d'oeuvres she stole from a waiter. Lexa had been attracted to her, yes, but she was also a little too shy for her own good, so she didn't know how to interact with this girl who thought it was totally normal to just shove a tray of snacks into the princess' face and practically demand that they test it out together.

Costia was an old story, something that was stashed into a chest and meant to only serve as a reminder when seen. She was beautiful and intelligent and graceful, probably more fit to be a princess than Lexa ever would be – and Lexa had loved her as much as one could love a first love. And for that, she didn't think she'd ever be able to fully forgive the media for ruining their relationship with its lack of tack.

"Plus, there's this girl I met and she's like a big deal in the country I was born in, so I thought it's probably best I brush up on the politics in the Polis, you know," Clarke said, tugging Lexa out of her thoughts.

"Big deal, huh?"

"That's what I heard."

Lexa's eyes caught onto a figure strolling down the path where she was seated and her grin grew bigger. "Well, you better make sure you learn enough to deserve a seat in the Senate."

"I think I'd enjoy being a doctor more."

Lexa hummed. "Yeah, I bet. You got to see a princess naked up close."

And at 2.36 in the morning, on a random bench in Philly Park in a country where the people had either gone to sleep or just started their day, a trilling laughter broke the air as she listened to her phone companion sputter on the other side of the connection. The figure from the distance had grown much closer during that time.

Their eyes met when Clarke lifted her head, and then Lexa winked, adding on a "Hi."

The blonde clicked off her phone as she stared at Lexa with a mixture of disbelief and irritation. Then she just rolled her eyes and proceeded to join the princess on the bench, eying the McDonald's takeout bag with a deadpan expression.

"You're impossible," she finally remarked, reaching into the bag and coming with a handful of fries.

"That's what my mother tells me. Go ahead. Help yourself."

"Oh my god, _nuggets_."

The princess could only watch with barely concealed secondhand happiness as her new in-the-flesh companion dug into the McDonald's bag like her life depended on it. She had seen the doctor calm and professional; flustered; middle of the night messy but still kind of radiant in her own way; and now hungry and shameless.

Lexa had yet to see Dr. Clarke Griffin in a light that she didn't like, and she suspected she probably wouldn't for a long time.

"Don't take my Big Mac though," Lexa belatedly warned when she saw Clarke's hand sneaking out a familiar packaging.

The blonde dutifully dropped it and went on to dig around for the other burger. Soon enough, they were both digging into their respective burgers, chucking a few fries and snacking on nuggets in between. The crickets made their presence known amongst the bushes and the trees. A certain distance away, Gustus was smoking on what was perhaps his third stick of cigarette, the McDonald's takeout she got for him forgotten by his side.

Clarke had just disposed of the wrapping and continued her rampage on the fries when she asked, "So what are you doing here?"

"Taking a walk."

Lexa tried not to squirm under the blonde's scrutiny, but it was becoming quite a feat when Clarke didn't relent in her narrowed eyes and disbelieving hum. She bemoaned the Big Mac that she had just devoured and then switched her focus over to the fries, avoiding striking blue eyes at all costs.

"How long have you been doing this?"

"I have to head over to Sangeda tomorrow."

The silence that ensued wasn't all that silent. Lexa was hoping that Clarke would take it, bite onto the bait _knowingly_ , and let her be guided away from her suspicion. On the other hand, Clarke – the intelligent person that she was – was probably debating whether she should pursue the subject or follow Lexa's lead.

What the blonde didn't know was that the ball was actually in her court, despite the princess' obvious effort to direct the conversation far away from her late night habits. If Clarke decided to not chomp onto the lame bait that Lexa had dangled in front of her, then Lexa would be honest. She didn't know why, she didn't want to know why yet, but she would.

Whatever Clarke wanted to know, Lexa would offer.

The doctor released a sigh. "Why are you going to Sangeda?"

Composure was key here; she couldn't let Clarke see exactly how relieved she was that Clarke went along with it. So she just lifted her eyes and offered a shrug. "Remember that program I've been telling you about?"

"Yeah," Clarke followed with a nod. "I remember thinking that you're really amazing for doing this for all those families out there."

"There's this husband. He has a kid with a heart condition and he really needs the money to get her through the rest of the year. I just wanna – I wanna see this little girl. I wanna look this little girl in the eye and tell her that her mother was very brave and heroic. I wanna look this little girl in the eye and tell her that she has nothing to worry about except to make her parents proud. I wanna look this little girl in the eye and…" Drifting off, she cleared her throat and looked away from the doctor. "I wanna look this little girl in the eye and tell her how sorry I am for sending her mother away and never bringing her back."

"Oh Lexa."

Suddenly, the brunette found herself ensconced in warmth and tenderness that she had only ever experienced that one time when her mother slept in her bed to scare away the monster in her closet. What surprised her more was that she just naturally sank into the touch, gave herself permission to be enveloped in this fireplace warmth that she had deprived herself since the moment she made her first kill.

Because she had made those kills. She had killed for the first time, and she followed with more kills – pulls of triggers, thrusts of knives, simple bludgeons with her fists. She had done it all. She had seen it all. She had taken lives. She had deprived other families – husbands, wives, children, fathers, mothers – of their hugs from their loved ones, regardless of whether those loved ones deserved to die or not.

In return, she didn't deserve this kind of affection, physical or emotional. When she had realized that killing made her feel no remorse any longer, she threw up into a bucket and told herself to make up for it by divesting herself from situations like this.

It was then that she remembered the promise she made herself – the only way of redemption that she could think of. And she snapped out of Clarke's arms and leaped to her feet, her lungs shrinking rapidly beneath her ribs and her cane forgotten as she stumbled on the grass and dug her calloused fingers into the soil, the mud finding homes under her nails.

Her ears rang and rang and rang, explosions and yells and cries and bullet rounds creating a crescendo of chaos that sank into her nerves and imploded her sense of reality. She would have taken off her jacket and sweater and cap and everything else to relieve herself from the burning that scalded everywhere had she not been frozen in place.

 _500 MILS. DSR-1. HS2000. M16. M1911. M249 SAW. M4. M4 Carbine. MP5. SR-25. XM2010._

Muffled voices came clearer. Hands grabbed on her forearm, gentle but firm. Another hand brushed across her forehead over and over again, stroking her skin and soothing her with its repetition.

She repeated the weapons one more time, imagined them one more time, and then it all became clearer.

"You're in Philly Park, four miles away from the palace, located in Polis, your home country. Listen to my voice, okay? This is Gustus Ashby, your bodyguard and a pain in your ass. Clarke's here too. Clarke Griffin, the pretty blonde doctor that saved your life in Libya. Okay? You hear me? You're in Philly Park, four miles away –"

Gustus only stopped in his dutiful chants when she found enough strength to raise a hand. The gentle hand on her forehead stopped in its movement, but the thumb didn't stop stroking her temple, which she was thankful for.

She blinked rapidly and found herself staring at a hand that had managed to dig deep enough into the soil that there would be a permanent park there. Slowly releasing her grip on the fistful of dirt, she inhaled a shaky breath before lifting her head to see Clarke kneeling before her, one arm extended hesitantly in her direction while the other hand cupping her head.

Oh _god_.

"Fuck," she whispered, lowering her head again.

"No, no fuck." She looked up again, frowning in confusion at the firmness in Clarke's tone and determined expression on her features. "You're –" Clarke exhaled harshly and shook her head. "You should go home," she implored.

Lexa gulped. She had scared the blonde away. She'd done it. Goddamn it. Still, she wasn't going to scare the doctor anymore than she already had, so she just pushed herself to her feet, refusing the help that her bodyguard and the blonde were offering her. It took a lot of effort, and she felt like she could inhale an entire tank of oxygen at the end of it, but she was on her feet.

She gazed at the doctor again, committing all features to memory because there was no way she'd ever be seeing Clarke again if the blonde had any choice in it. And Lexa was the last person to want to make Clarke feel uncomfortable.

She should have stuck with the phone calls and the text messages. The past three days had been almost blissful with the constant text alerts and the occasional calls whenever Clarke was not on shift. Talking to the blonde had really done something to calm Lexa down, which was something she had been seeking since the moment she came back home and experienced her first nightmare in the calm of home.

But she just had to be an idiot and buy the doctor goddamn _McDonald's_ , all because she missed seeing Clarke's face. And now she would have no chance because the fight or flight system in her core had decided to activate itself, and she would never fight Clarke under any circumstances.

Fucking McDonald's.

* * *

"What's this?"

Lexa looked up from the card she was writing on and found her sister standing next to her, glancing down at the same card. She ignored Anya and signed her name, not even caring that Anya was reading the message, before handing it over to the maid. The maid scurried away, having already memorized the instructions that Lexa had given her about the card and the bouquet waiting to be delivered at the front door.

"Lexa, are you okay?" Anya asked.

The youngest sibling pulled on her coat and relieved her hair from under the confines. "Yeah, I'm good." She turned to her sister and said, "I'm sorry about the other day."

Anya blinked at Lexa before her brows set into a frown. "You don't have to apologize."

"I do."

"No, you don't," her sister said more firmly, clasping her hands over Lexa's arms. "Just…talk to me. Talk to anyone."

"I –" The brunette thought back to mere hours ago, when Clarke had been so prepared to get away from Lexa. She inhaled deeply and released her breath through her mouth, shaking her head. "I'm fine, I promise. I have a plane to catch."

"Lexa –"

"I'll catch up with you when I get back tomorrow, okay?"

Before Anya could pry her with more questions, she ducked out of the room and down the maze of corridors until she reached the front door. All the while, her hand gripping the phone in her coat pocket tightly, hoping and wishing and waiting _desperately_ for it to vibrate, even when she knew full well that it wouldn't.

Gustus did not say a word when she got into the back of the car and drove. He hadn't said anything since the things he said to bring her back aboveground. She could tell that he wanted to, but she was still thankful that he kept his mouth shut. She didn't think she was ready to hear whatever he had in his mind.

All she could do now was hope that Clarke would forgive her, even if she didn't want to see Lexa again. Forgiveness from afar was better than nothing.

* * *

 **i don't have ptsd, i don't know anyone with ptsd, this is written based on what little research i've done. if you could show me the way, i'd be forever thankful. if there's anything wrong with my portrayal, i'm more than happy to listen.**

 **also, guys, if you want to, you can show me support through ko-fi, which you can find on my tumblr at overcanary - one coffee still counts!**


	5. audeamus

**um...happy new year? wow.**

 **i fully intended to upload this chapter during the new year week, but my grandmother became _really_ sick - turned out she had dementia - and i was too busy taking care of her and explaining everything to the rest of my family that i couldn't get around to writing it. and then two weeks ago, her suffering ended and she passed away, so then there was the funeral and all of that. after that, i was just too sad to even focus on anything but grieving and getting used to the absence of my grandmother in the house.**

 **i'll be honest - i'm still not used to it; i am still sad. and it was pretty difficult to come up with this chapter, but i figured that life goes on, and i have to move on. so maybe this chapter may not be as up to par as you might expect, i tried my best. i can't promise when i'll post next, but i promise you i won't abandon this fic.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

Clarke was striding through the emergency room doors and staring down at her phone with her lower lip caught on her teeth as she debated whether it was too soon or too late to say something. She decided that it was a debate that could wait for a little while longer when she reached the nurses' station, prepared to see what the latest reports had for her regarding her patients, only to be confronted right in the face with a colorful bouquet.

Her hand that had been holding the phone was tucked into her back pocket, suddenly frozen, as she reached out with the other one to finger the petals of a purple orchid amongst the many flowers. In the midst of considering a pale white hyacinth, one of her best friends sidled up to her right, tapping a tablet stylus to her lips as she made a humming noise.

"Wow, I can't believe she managed to piss you off already. That's some record," Raven commented, leaning in closer as if it would help her see gigantic bouquet better.

"She didn't –" Clarke narrowed her eyes and glared at the other woman momentarily.

Then she snatched the card that she had only just noticed before Raven could get her claws on it. She gave Raven another warning glare, obviously telling her to back off, before opening it.

 _Dear Clarke,_

 _I don't know how else to apologize for my behavior last night except for the best apology bouquet that the best florist in the city can assemble. Please understand my sincere regret over what happened last night._

 _Wishing you well,  
Lexa_

No 'may we meet again', or anything that indicated a potential future for whatever it was burgeoning between them. Clarke reread those words in an attempt to find an indication – _whatever_ – that could give her some hope.

All she saw was a deep found apology and an end note.

It was only when a tanned hand slipped into her vision to get ahold of the card and _fail_ to tug it off her grasp that Clarke realized how hard she was holding onto the card – the scented card that smelled like Lexa's cologne and lavender – so much so that the perfect sides were permanently crinkled.

Allowing her best friend to take the card, Clarke stared at the bouquet again, deciding that she hated it if this was the beginning of the end – or maybe the end of the end. She huffed, finding herself irrationally pissed off at a goddamn _bouquet_ that was meant with the best of hearts – then she realized that maybe it wasn't the bouquet that she was pissed at.

"What happened last night?" Raven's inquisitive voice penetrated her muddled brain.

Brushing her hand over her face and then tugging the digits through her hair roughly, she released a frustrated groan, stomped her feet, snagged the bouquet and the card, and stormed out of the emergency room. She needed more time to think before she could grace existing and incoming patients with her decidedly unfair temperament today.

* * *

"' _Wishing you well_?'"

"Clarke, I –"

"I don't need you to wish me well. I'm doing really damn well, thank you very much!" she trampled on as she paced in circles on the stairwell landing, not really caring if her voice would carry outside to passersby.

When Clarke had seen on the television hanging on the wall in the waiting area that Lexa had landed in Sangeda, she didn't even hesitate. The patients could wait, the interns could look for another attending; she just needed to expel her anger at the right person before she truly exploded – she was well aware that it was unprofessional behavior, but better to let it all out than to subject innocents to her explosive nature, right?

She rushed through the door to the staircase and dialed the latest number in her phone, allowing the thought of the bouquet carefully stashed in her locker – they _were_ beautiful, after all – to fuel her anger once again. It didn't take long for the call to be picked up, and she didn't allow the woman on the other end of the line to say a word, even if she was the princess.

"'Wishing you well' makes it sound like you don't expect to see me again."

She waited for it: the clever retort verging on flirtation that Lexa seemed to be so well versed at. Only something like that would be able to help in alleviating the lingering concerns she had for the princess, but she couldn't directly voice her concerns and allow the brunette to think that she wasn't angry anymore, because she very much was.

Except nothing like that came. The line was quiet and Clarke would have thought that all sounds have been sucked into vacuum if it weren't for the echoes of her sneakers squeaking on the floor and her harsh breathing. And at that, the blonde found herself increasingly irrationally angry and her grip over her phone tightened all the more. So much that it was considered lucky that the device hadn't just crushed.

" _Wow_."

Lexa sighed and Clarke heard her mutter something or other to someone else before she said, "I just didn't think you'd want to –"

"What?" Clarke cut her off. "Be around you after I watched you have a panic attack in the middle of the night at my favorite park?"

The princess was quiet momentarily. "Yeah." It came out meek and resigned, so unlike the confident Lexa that Clarke had gotten used to despite their short acquaintanceship.

That single syllable, unbefitting of the tough princess often portrayed through the media and totally expected from an honorably discharged soldier, soft and scared, was enough to break Clarke's composure. Enough for the layers of anger to dissolve into ash.

She leaned against the railing of the stairs and looked down at her worn sneakers, noticing the cracks in the soles and the dirt gathering on the laces, hoping that Lexa wasn't in Sangeda right now. Only so Clarke could look her in the face when she said this.

"Lexa, you had a panic attack," she said as gently as possible, knowing full well that Lexa wouldn't really be able to understand what she was trying to say without looking at her.

"I know I had a panic attack."

Clarke closed her eyes at the way Lexa's tone took a turn for the worse, more closed off and defensive, as if Clarke had just accused her of some crime. Her years of dealing with similar situations – patients and soldier friends she had made when she was at the hospital – taught her to wait it out.

Give it time. However much time they needed. These things were not meant to be rushed, and Clarke found herself caring for Lexa a little too much that she was less willing to risk it.

As a matter of fact, she was already feeling guilty for yelling at Lexa earlier. Because it was irrational and Lexa didn't deserve it. After all, Clarke _had_ been the one to push the princess to go home without really offering any reassurance for their friendship.

"I shouldn't have yelled at you," she shifted, figuring that Lexa needed it.

"No, you were right to yell at me."

"No, I wasn't."

"Clarke –"

"Look, it's not my first time, okay? What happened was not my first time."

All Lexa had to offer was a long pause. So long that Clarke kind of thought that the woman had hung up and she had to take a look at the screen to make sure that they were still connected.

So maybe Lexa was really that scared. Clarke had only known the woman to be funny, humorous, flirty, and bold; nothing like this. Briefly, as she gathered her thoughts and figured the next best move so as not to scare way the woman any more than she already was, she wondered who else had gotten to see the princess so vulnerable.

She had also never expected for the ball to be in her court most of the time when she had befriended the princess in the first place. And this, she totally blamed the media for. Wrongful portrayal and all that. Then again, she could also blame Lexa for always putting on a tough front for the camera and giving the people a false illusion.

"You can't scare me away that easily, okay?" When Lexa still hadn't said a word, Clarke persisted, "Okay, Lexa?"

The brunette's sigh was indication enough that Clarke had won this round. "Okay."

"Look, I don't think it's very convenient for us to talk about this over the phone."

"You called me," Lexa sassed back.

Clarke rolled her eyes. The princess just couldn't resist, could she? "Yeah, because you 'wished me well'."

Lexa snorted and Clarke warmed over, glad that at least Lexa was relieved enough for now to let down her guard. It was all she could ask for with this limited connection between them.

"I was being polite," the brunette argued.

While a retort was already hanging on her tongue, real world decided to interfere by vibrating her pager hanging onto her pants, reminding her of its presence so she could snap out of the trance she always found herself in whenever Lexa was in the picture. She grumbled gibberish to herself as she took a look at the device.

"I have to go," she sighed, pinning the pager back to her pants again and making her way out of the emergency exit to the corridor in the peds department. "Make me proud with whatever you're doing in Sangeda. And remember, you can't scare me away that easily," she reminded the other woman as she stood by the elevator and waited for one to reach her floor.

"Yes, ma'am."

"We'll talk when you come back."

"Okay."

Even over the phone, Clarke could hear the smile tugging on Lexa's lip as she agreed to Clarke's practical demand. When they finally hung up and Clarke was confronted with a woman impaled with a kitchen knife in her abdomen in the ER, she had to fight the grin from making an appearance on her face and offending the victim.

* * *

She had just dismissed a herd of interns following her after tending to a patient when she saw the person entering the lobby. If this was a cartoon and shoes could make those screeching noises when they abruptly stopped, Clarke was certain that hers would have stopped movement in the entire floor. Thankfully enough, her sneakers were nice today and only managed a small squeak as she made an abrupt turnaround and hid behind a wall.

Peeking her head around the corner, she watched Abby Griffin locate the directory easily and browsing it, though Clarke would bet a kidney on the only two possibilities that her mother would be looking for in that directory. Wary eyes tracked the Griffin matriarch from the directory to the elevators and into a car.

She whipped her phone out as soon as the doors slid closed and called Raven, only to be left at dial tone. Stupid Raven. What could be more important than her best friend panicking about her mother's appearance in the hospital she deliberately chose to work in to avoid said woman? When another call left her the dial tone again, she made a vow to put Raven on friendship probation before calling the next best person.

"You're lucky Sydney just left," Octavia said in lieu of a proper greeting, not that Clarke was in mood for one anyway.

"My mother's here."

Octavia gave a pause, which was appropriate, in Clarke's opinion. "Your mother like the one Raven has a crush on?"

" _Do not_ say it like that!" Clarke hissed, squeezing her eyes shut at the horrible reminder.

"Oh please, chill out. It's just a crush. Besides, she and my brother are too busy doing the whole skinny love thing to even care about other people," Octavia added a little grumpily, as she had been since she found out about that time Raven and Bellamy had sex in college.

"That's not important right now."

"You're right. What is important is whether Raven knows your mother is here. Maybe she can stop pining after my brother and shift her attention full time."

Clarke released a groan, one loud and frustrated enough to give a passing pregnant lady pause. The doctor offered a placating smile before restoring the glare she had towards the person she was talking to. "You're not being very helpful."

"I honestly don't know how helpful I can be. Abby Griffin scares the shit out of me."

Stomping a foot on the floor before getting away from the wall – the danger had moved to higher floors on the premises so there was no need to hide anymore – Clarke headed towards the coffee cart and gestured at Joseph to prepare her regular order. Caffeine was definitely necessary if her mother was in the same building as her, even though they didn't speak to each other.

If she could help it, they wouldn't have to speak to each other for another week. And then her mother would probably show up at her apartment and demand they have brunch together. It was like clockwork now.

"Do you know why she's here?" Clarke asked.

"Uh, not really. I mean, I don't talk to your mother, because, like I said, Abby Griffin scares the shit out of –"

"What?" Clarke squinted as she handed over the cash to Joseph and accepted the piping hot cup of espresso with a grateful grimace. Octavia didn't respond. Either Sydney was there or Octavia was dead. "What is it, O?"

"Um," Octavia trailed off; Clarke could practically hear her fingers creating a random rhythm on the hardwood material of the desk. "I think Raven…"

"What about Raven, Octavia?" Oh god, maybe Raven actually slept with her mother. Oh fuck. She could see the whites creeping in at the edges of her vision, and maybe this was what Lexa felt last night.

"She may have mentioned you and Lexa to your mother."

Clarke breathed a sigh of relief. So relieved that she had immediately sagged against another random wall and slid down onto her haunches, probably scaring the old man waiting to be picked up near the entrance. She didn't care about that right now; at least her mother and her best friend did not knock boots together, that was the point.

Well, it was, until what Octavia had just told her sank in. She went rigid, posture getting a straight as possible as she refused to get off her haunches. She sipped heartily at the espresso and tossing it in the trashcan that was conveniently next to her, marginally feeling the caffeine sinking into her veins and giving her the energy to deal with the storm that was probably marching her way to the attending lounge right now.

"I'm gonna kill her."

"Okay, I understand you're pissed, but maybe consider that she's already lost a leg."

Clarke hummed, nodding to herself as she pondered Octavia's observation. "I'm gonna break her other leg," she decided.

" _Clarke_."

But Clarke had already hung up. She stood up and pocketed her phone. If there was ever a time for a multiple car crash in the city, now would probably be a good time.

* * *

As it turned out, Abby Griffin wasn't in the attending lounge – according to a cardiothoracic attending who was still a little shell shocked at her version of an idol's appearance in their hospital, her mother had only hummed in disdain at her absence and proceeded to take the elevator to where the office of the Chief of Surgery was. Clarke couldn't figure out if that was worse or better.

She was already in the elevator, preparing to make her way to Marcus Kane's office and face the music sooner or later, when Diana Sydney got into the same car as her and monotonously informed her that Dr Abby Griffin was currently observing Dr Kane's craniotomy surgery in OR 4. That was exactly the moment that Clarke decided it was worse.

As a nurse, Sydney was not the most friendly and sometimes there were even rumors that she was planning a coup against Kane, which was ridiculous, but Clarke had also learned that Sydney rarely ever lied. And as informed, Clarke found her mother sitting in the viewing gallery. Front row, no less.

She resisted the urge to gag and found her way to the front row as well, sitting next to her mother and making a show of how much the woman's presence wasn't freaking her out when the truth was she really wanted to get the hell out of there.

She watched the purpose of this viewing gallery. Analyzing the way the man who used to give her rides on his shoulders precisely execute the blade and the organ. Wondering how her relationship with Marcus Kane had become so strained. Ignoring her mother's stare into the side of her head.

An hour and a half later, Marcus had finished suturing up his patient and tossed a look up at the gallery; Clarke didn't need to guess whom exactly he was looking for approval from. The woman next to her stood up and just squeezed Clarke's shoulder with a stern hand before heading out.

Clarke sighed and followed her mother until they entered Marcus' office, aware that the man wouldn't be in his office for awhile because post-op procedures took time. Abby poured two glasses of water and Clarke just stood there, like a child waiting to be lectured, as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

Honestly, she was twenty-seven. She should be better than this.

"I heard something interesting from Raven a couple of days ago," Abby started off as she made herself comfortable in one of the armchairs, gesturing for Clarke to sit down on the other one.

Clarke sat down, quiet.

"Why didn't I know about you saving Princess Lexa's life in Libya?" Wait, was that it? Did Raven tell Abby only that? If so, maybe Clarke could spare her leg and just settle for a toe.

The younger Griffin bit her lip, not sure how to answer her mother's question without offending the woman.

"It could have done so much for your reputation as a doctor if I had known. I could have used that –"

"I didn't want you to," Clarke cut her off.

Abby frowned, clearly confused.

"I saved the princess' life because it was the right thing to do. It was my job. Not because I wanted the fame and the things you could do with what _I_ did."

"Clarke, you're not thinking clearly."

"Oh, I was and am thinking very clearly. I know you very well, Mom – that's why I didn't tell you. I even told Raven and Octavia to not tell you about it."

"What exactly are you –"

Clarke stood up, not wanting to hear any further. Plus, if she could avoid any further conversation that could lead her into accidentally revealing her friendship with Lexa, she would do that. And right now, getting the hell out of this room and as far away as Abby as possible was that. She gave her mother a placating kiss on the cheek and headed for the door.

"I have patients, Mom. And I'm sure you have lunch plans with Dr Kane." She could barely make herself say that with a poker face, but she pulled through.

Knowing that her daughter was as stubborn as she was and this conversation would go nowhere further today, Abby only sighed and nodded. "See you for brunch on Sunday." It wasn't a request, but an order.

So Clarke just nodded and got out of the office as fast as possible.

* * *

 _Lexa (5:32p.m.): When did wishing someone well become criminal?_

Clarke snorted at the text and looked up from her phone when someone called her name. It was Finn Collins, and Clarke was honestly confused as to what the universe had against her for constantly sending people she didn't want near her to her. She heaved a sigh through her nose and offered a strained smile at the idiot bumbling towards her.

He was lugging a gym bag at his side and his floppy hair tied into a manbun. There couldn't be more of a fuckboy representative even if they tried. Since she started working at this hospital and had the displeasure of being introduced to him, she found herself consistently questioning how much he had to pay to get certified as a doctor.

"What can I do for you, Dr. Collins?"

He scoffed. "Oh please, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Finn?"

"Many more, I guess," she deadpanned.

He blinked, obviously taken aback by her bored response. But kudos to him, he regained composure easily and laid on that easy grin of his that had worked on many a lady before, but definitely not her. She mostly just found it sleazy and oily and would give anything to permanently wipe it off his face.

"I ran into your mother today."

Oh _fuck_.

Clarke restrained herself from making a physical display of exactly how she felt about that bit of information. Instead, the hand on the strap of her sling bag tightened so much that she could feel the imprints of her nails on her palm. On her face, she only offered a tight smile and waited for him to go on, because that was the thing about Finn: he loved hearing himself talk.

"She mentioned something about brunch on Sunday…"

She lost him at that point, already feeling her blood freeze over. Her eyes tracked his lips moving but her ears weren't absorbing anything. Instead, she had pretty much tuned him out, choosing instead to plot ways of revenge against her mother for trying, once again, to set her up with this imbecile, no matter how many times she had _explicitly_ said that nothing about this man attracted her to him.

For some reason, Abby Griffin had taken one look at Finn Collins on her first time visiting this hospital since Clarke had started working there and taken a shine on him, resolute on the idea of him being her son-in-law. Clarke supposed that even at her age, her mother wasn't immune to his so-called irresistible charms.

Though really, Clarke couldn't see it. She tried looking for the charms, even peeked into the garbage once when he passed by a nurse and she just straight up swooned, but found nothing.

"…flowers? Or does she like chocolate?"

"Nope."

Finn paused, blinked a couple of times, and then exuded a confused laugh. "Nope, as in she doesn't like flowers or chocolate?"

She stared at him for a longer moment, tracing his eyes and nose and the smile on his lips, giving him one last chance and attempting to locate the _charm_. When she couldn't find it, she crossed her arms and displayed the most polite smile she could muster. "Nope, as in you're not going to brunch."

"But your mother invited –"

"Uninvite yourself," she said, starting to turn around and making for the door.

"I can't –"

"Yes, you can. Uninvite yourself, Dr. Collins. You're not going to brunch on Sunday. Or any day!" She threw over her shoulder and didn't give him any chance to retort as the doors slid closed behind her and she sped walk to her car.

 _Clarke (5:40p.m.): its criminal when it sounds like u tryna have a clean break w/ me_

She stayed in her car for a few minutes as she allowed herself the privilege of huffing and puffing at her mother's audacity. Even a hospital away, Abby Griffin still couldn't get the hint that Clarke really just wanted her to stop meddling.

When she had first come back from her tour, there were already two attending position offers waiting for her – one at Silver Hill Hospital and another at East Grace General. It wasn't a difficult choice to pick the establishment where her mother _didn't_ work. She had thought working with Marcus Kane again would be fun. Had, being the operative word, given that she found out that the Chief of Surgery was actually courting Abby Griffin on her third day of working there.

It was already too late by then. But at least she didn't have to see her mother every day, which was something that Clarke never took for granted.

Still, after everything that had happened today, Clarke had to wonder whether she had to sign up for another tour and maybe head over to a hospital farther away than Libya for her mother to just give up trying to control her life. It was probably not the noblest of intention, but she was certain that the King wouldn't mind as long as she was saving lives.

Plus, she had an in with his daughter.

 _Lexa (5:42p.m.): I could very well just want you to be…well._

Clarke snorted.

 _Clarke (5:42p.m.): cut the bs lexa woods u thought u scared me off_

 _Lexa (5:43p.m.): I wouldn't blame you if I did._

The doctor sighed at the text and rolled her eyes fondly at the person she was texting with. Sure, she might not know Lexa much, but for as much as she had learned about the princess, Lexa was extremely self-deprecating and did not prioritize herself enough. Something that could be seen through her negligence when it came to sleeping and now, this.

 _Clarke (5:46p.m.): ure forgetting that im a trauma surgeon and ive been in the field_

It wasn't an outright rejection of Lexa's proverbial overture of a way out for Clarke before she went too deep into their friendship. What the veteran didn't know was that Clarke didn't want to get out – maybe there wasn't even a way out anymore with exit behind her sealed shut voluntarily. So it may not be an outright rejection, but it implied the same thing until they could talk things out when Lexa returned.

* * *

"He's a good lay though."

There it was, the urge to gag. She wasn't sure what was worse – Raven's crush on her mother or the fact that Raven actually slept with Finn Collins, even if it was only once.

"I don't need to know that."

"So what's this I hear about you wanting to break my other leg?"

"Break which leg now?"

Clarke and Raven paused in their movements as the new addition, turning their gazes from one another to the princess standing outside her apartment door, her hulking bodyguard standing dutifully behind her. Somehow, she could feel Raven grabbing onto her arm and digging her talons into her skin.

The blonde yelped and yanked her limb out of the Latina's grasp. "Oh, so this is real then," Raven remarked, still gaping at Lexa.

Cupping her forehead with a hand, Clarke glowered at her slippers and shook her head. She finally looked up and almost wanted to swipe that smug look off Lexa's face. Shaking her head again, she turned to her best friend and waved a hand in front of the woman's face, glad to see that Raven wasn't so engrossed as to be completely ignorant to her surroundings.

Otherwise, Clarke might actually push her off the ledge just to sling Raven back to reality.

She turned back to the princess and said, "You gotta stop giving my friends heart attacks." Lexa's smile only widened and her shoulder lifted in a shrug, not at all apologetic. Clarke sighed. "What are you doing here?"

"I just got back from Sangeda and I thought we could talk," the brunette replied.

Clarke tilted her head. "I didn't see anything on the news."

"My plane landed like forty-five minutes ago."

Blue eyes gradually widened at the realization. A breathy squeal sounded from beside her, proving that she wasn't imagining it if Raven had realized it too.

It was only at Lexa's barely-there admission that Clarke made herself eyeball the woman in front of her – the signature dark brown coat, the leather jacket underneath, the slightly paler than healthy pallor, and the rumpled beige khaki pants. She found herself dumbly nodding for a few seconds before Gustus cleared his throat from behind Lexa, eying the doctor intentionally.

Clarke snapped out of her shock and told Raven, "Booze night's postponed. Tell Octavia."

"What? But –"

"On me, I promise," Clarke cut off Raven's protest. She made sure to look her best friend in the eye for the woman to understand how serious she was with this promise.

Raven heaved a frustrated groan and pointed a finger at Clarke, pretty much poking the blonde in the nose. "You owe me more than that."

"Yeah, we'll talk. Now go. Gustus, would you be so kind and escort my friend to her car? She's gone a dumb leg."

"Hey!"

She probably had no right to order Gustus to do anything – that was why she asked. But still, he had to turn to his charge for permission, and when Lexa nodded, he squeezed past all of them through the narrow hallway and nodded at Raven. Clarke shot Raven a sheepish smile and watched the two figures so different in sizes disappeared around the corner to the elevators.

And then she whirled back around to face Lexa, who seemed in severe need of caffeine and was about to drop dead right where she was. Clarke huffed, feeling the annoyance rise in her chest at the princess' disregard for her own health, and tugged her keys from her jacket pocket.

"This talk could have waited, you know," Clarke said, opening the door and letting Lexa in.

"Well, I missed you, so," Lexa threw back casually as she shouldered past the blonde into the apartment, leaving the doctor to freeze in response to her words, unsure of what to say. Meanwhile, the princess didn't seem to realize what she had just said and collapsed on the couch without waiting for Clarke's invitation. "This might be rude, but I would really like some coffee."

* * *

 **i tried to be funny - i really did. i would really like to know your thoughts?**


	6. ad meliora

***spongebob voice* one month later**

 **yikes. with the whole grieving and the semester starting - i got a little too swamped that i forgot about this fic for a little while. _but_ i promise that there will be updates, i just can't promise when anymore. i would rather not leave you guys hanging. still, i won't be one of those people who post a fic and then don't complete it. so this fic will definitely have an ending, but it'll probably be a decade from now lol**

 **that's better than nothing, right?**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

Joshua Holbrook was reasonably flummoxed when he opened the door and saw the youngest Princess of Polis standing outside his door. Moreover, directly behind her stood a gigantic and quiet Gustus who insisted on the sunglasses, and lining up the driveway _behind_ them were an array of Brigade men – the Polisian Secret Service – prepared to give up their life for the princess in a second's notice.

Not that she wanted it. After having been in the army and having more than enough men and women die instead of her, the last thing she wanted was for _more_ people to sacrifice their lives for her. But her family were very insistent on it, especially her sister, surprisingly, saying that they had had to wake up not knowing what they were going to be told about Lexa for three tours – there was no way they were letting her out of their sight without being sure that she was _safe_.

It was a pretty effective guilt trip, she would give them that.

Joshua stuttered in inviting her in. And they sat down and she went through the usual procedure of explaining this fresh program that was still in its infancy but would very much like to offer him membership in. Unlike the other widows and widowers that she had personally visited, he kept a stony face throughout, and she would have thought he was being ungrateful and was of half the mind to just rescind the offer.

That was, until he nodded curtly and asked her if she would like to meet his daughter. The kid was in her bedroom, building a mini city infrastructure with Lego pieces. On the bedside table sat bottles of pills and syrups.

She knelt down in front of Heather, getting the sense the girl didn't actually know who she was, which was perfect. They conversed a little, built some more tiny buildings, and Lexa knew that she couldn't stay any longer if she wanted to catch her flight.

So she held Heather's hands and looked into those big brown eyes and said, "I want you to know that your mommy was very brave and heroic. She went ahead and did something that we will _always_ owe her for. I hope you are _very_ proud of her. I also want you to know that you don't have to worry about your daddy or anything else. Just focus on what you like to do, be _excellent_ at it, and make your parents proud, okay, Heather?"

When she was at the door, Joshua unexpectedly engulfed her in a hug, eliciting a yelp from her and probably a whole array of panic mode from her security team, particularly Gus. But as his body shook violently against her and her ears rang with his barely suppressed sobs, she could only hug him back.

On the flight, Lexa couldn't stop thinking about Heather and her brown eyes and the medication and the Lego pieces. She had hoped that this little thing she did could really contribute to a child's future. And she was so tired.

Logically, her exhaustion should have brought her home. But when they finally landed and Lexa and Gus got into the limo, the first thing she said to the driver was Clarke's address, her irate words over the phone still circling in the brunette's head.

Two days ago, when she had boarded the jet for Sangeda, she had lost all hope in any progress in her friendship with the doctor. In her mind, when one had borne witness to a panic attack, one would stay away. Clearly, she had underestimated Clarke, because she was in the middle of looking through the documents for Joshua Holbrook again when she got the call and became the recipient of an earful.

Clarke's promise had done something to Lexa – strengthened a sense of optimism that she thought had died with her leg. So now that she had infused hope in someone else, brought a sense of reassurance to a family, perhaps she deserved her own peace of mind herself. Because she knew that she would never be able to sleep peacefully if she didn't talk to Clarke face to face.

Not that she had ever gotten proper sleep since her return, but that was the whole gist of it.

"Don't judge," Lexa snapped when Gus eyed her from beside her. "And don't go gossiping to my dad again." His expression darkened, which oddly pleased her.

She had waited at Clarke's door for a little more than an hour when Clarke had finally shown up with her friend in tow. But it wasn't as if she was going to tell the doctor that, so she just spun a little white lie about how she had just landed forty-five minutes ago. Though she couldn't find it in herself to feel guilty for Clarke chasing her friend away – her energy had become more finite in the day and there was only so much she could focus on – so she just willingly followed the blonde into her home once the door was unlocked, quietly telling Gus to stay outside.

As she watched the doctor deal with plastic bags in the kitchen, the heaviness that Joshua Holbrook had left her dissipated almost completely. This was comfortable, cozy – something that couldn't be completely found in the palace that she called home. So she allowed herself to close her eyes to the sound of plastic rustling and Clarke's rustic voice.

* * *

The next time Lexa opened her eyes, instead of dimming sunlight, she was confronted rather rudely by very bright rays that didn't seem to be setting any time soon. She frowned in confusion, blinking away the confusion as she slowly sat upright and took in the surroundings that were definitely _not_ her bedroom.

Wait, this was not her bedroom.

Her sleepiness dissipated in as short as a second and she leaped out of bed, the heavy blanket easily flung aside, alertness seeping into her consciousness at the unfamiliar surroundings. Her arms were stiff and in position – she didn't have a gun, but her hands were enough. One of her knees was bent and the other firmly placed but prepared to lunge if necessary.

She could feel her pulse slowing to an almost dead man beat, eyes roving over the furniture and the decorations. Seemed innocent, nothing too harmful. Picture frames posted everywhere, but her attention span could not care enough for the people in those photos.

Still, anything can be used as a weapon. She had learned that the hard way – the very hard way.

And then her eyes caught onto a letter in a frame, words written on a familiar parchment. A random paper snatched from the clipboard in opposition to the nurse's protest in a hurry to write down a few words for a certain pretty blonde doctor.

Right, Clarke had ignored her request for coffee yesterday afternoon and instead forced her to sleep. But she clearly fell asleep on the couch, so how did she end up in bed?

The tension locking her joints and stiffening her muscles gradually but definitely sapped away at the letter. She looked back to the photo frames and began noticing the people in them, recognizing only one person in all those photos. Body sagged and the bells in her brain silenced, she regained composure and permitted herself ten deep breaths as taught by Sergeant Roberts in Iran.

When she was certain that her nerves had rearranged themselves and she would be able to keep it together, she picked up the closest frame that was stood on the nightstand. In it were three incredibly happy girls, perhaps in their early twenties, huddled together in a tiny tent – one of them being Clarke and the other two Lexa vaguely recognized as the two women she encountered the last time she came over.

She moved on to the other photos, seeing an older male figure with a kind smile and rough physique, an older female figure who was rather attractive despite her sternness, and random people that appeared throughout. Finally, she found herself picking up the letter that had been framed, reading over her own words and blushing at her own boldness. Her blush deepened when she realized that Clarke had actually framed the letter in such pristine condition and placed it in her bedroom.

Still, despite her absorption to all these snippets that defined the blonde's life, Lexa's earlier panic mode had steered her into a constantly alert condition, which was how she sensed a change in the hair and heard a soft sigh before the door opened. When Clarke walked in with a tray of cookies and milk, Lexa had already put down the frame, turned towards the door, and her hands clasped behind her.

Clarke yelped at the sight of Lexa not in the bed but up on her feet, nearly dropping the tray and spilling the milk. Lexa smirked at the reaction.

"You are awful and I don't like you," Clarke complained, glaring at the princess.

"And yet you brought me breakfast in bed," Lexa said.

Clarke huffed and deposited the plate of cookies and the glass of milk on the study table, gesturing at it. "I was afraid I'd get arrested for not feeding the princess."

Lexa scoffed, but she made herself comfortable on the chair instead, humming in appreciation when the warm milk smoothed over her parched throat. "Come share with me." Clarke leaned against the table to Lexa's right and picked up a cookie, munching into it immediately. "So how did I end up in bed?"

"You know, you're surprisingly heavy for someone so slight."

The brunette stopped eating her cookie to frown at the blonde. "Excuse me. I will have you know I am anything but slight."

To prove her point, she curled up the sleeves of the shirt she had worn yesterday and slept in, curling it up to flex her bicep for the blonde. When Clarke's pupils blew a little and her mouth opened just slightly at the sight, Lexa knew she did the right thing. Still, treats shouldn't be given out so freely, so she lowered her arm and went back to the cookies, waiting for Clarke to shake out of her thoughts and clear her throat.

"Well, you're still heavy."

"It's muscle."

"I _know_."

Lexa snorted and continued to chew on her cookie. The breakfast was eaten in silence; not uncomfortable though. As a matter of fact, Lexa wasn't sure when the last time she had felt so cozy in such a state of silence with another person.

They demolished the cookies and the brunette gulped down the milk after having snatched it a second before Clarke could reach it. Clarke was huffing again when Lexa put down the now empty glass.

"I should have kicked you out yesterday," she said.

"Yes, because I'm awful and you don't like me," Lexa echoed.

"Oh, good to know that someone's learned to be a little more self-aware."

There would never be a time where Lexa was not thankful that she was not an obvious blusher; it was what helped her build her reputation as the emotionless princess with the public and kept her out of trouble whenever she ran into a pretty girl or something embarrassing had happened. The heat crept up her neck at the callout, but she kept her expression as blank as possible.

Meanwhile, the pretty blonde doctor eyed her intentionally as she pushed off the table and picked up the tray once more. The teasing twinkle in her eyes had mostly diminished; in its place was careful consideration and scant concern.

As she retreated out of the room without another word, Lexa obeyed the silent order and followed after locating her cane by the bedside table. She found herself entering a room that she had barely taken a glance at yesterday before collapsing on the couch. While her host was still washing the dishes quietly, she looked at more photos, taking in the memories that Clarke had built in her life before meeting the princess, pausing at a photo that comprised of her and her colleagues at the hospital where they met.

She didn't know how long she'd been staring at the photo – at the bright smile on Clarke's face as she had an arm around a black man's neck, the way she unabashedly had another arm around a nurse's waist at the other side, the sheer happiness of the medical personnel in the midst of what was surely chaotic and deadly – but she did jump a little when Clarke's voice sounded from a few feet behind her.

"Why'd you join the army?"

Clarke had made herself comfortable on an armchair and was gesturing at the couch that Lexa had apparently fallen asleep on.

Okay, so it was serious talk time – and Lexa hadn't even been awake for a full two hours. In the back of her mind, she briefly thought about the paperwork that must have piled up on her desk over the time she'd been absent. But she sat down anyway, choosing to forget about them for awhile and tricking herself into thinking that she deserved a one-day break from it all.

"That's a tough question," Lexa responded, rubbing her palms together. Clarke simply raised a brow, lips shut. Lexa sighed and rested her elbows on her knees. "Do you remember when Polis Sentinel outed me?"

Clarke's lips twitched a little. "I don't think anyone could ever forget that."

She could still picture it, everything that had happened that day. How Lincoln and Anya tumbled over one another in their haste to barge into her room and snatch the day's copy of Polis Sentinel with hopes that she hadn't woken up yet, but Lexa had always been an early riser, and she had just returned from a morning run when she saw the paper. The descent of their panicked expressions into pity and regret. Her parents strutting into the room with their mouths going off about how they were going to sue the paper and that they supported her no matter what. Her kicking them all out of her room and closing herself off for the entire day, refusing calls and texts from her friends and family. Costia calling her that night and telling her that she couldn't handle the paparazzi hounding her door and apologizing for her weakness and the dial tone signaling the end of their one-year relationship.

But that wasn't the worst. Those weren't the worst.

"I was eighteen and I've never felt more purposeless in my life. I tried to do things, you know – LGBTQ+ programs and assorted charities and joining my dad on diplomatic ventures. Hell, I even met Putin. But I felt…useless." Lexa rubbed her palms harder, as if the friction was the only thing stopping her from seeing things. "I was known as the gay princess from Polis everywhere I go. And I know that I should feel – maybe not proud, but significant, in that way. Like I'm doing something for the community. But I didn't like it. I hated it. That wasn't – I _knew_ that I wasn't _born_ to be known as _that_."

Clarke had shifted on the armchair. She sat sideways with her legs hanging off the right arm and her head propped in her hand. Her eyes were blank, save for the quiet prompting for the brunette to continue.

"Then I just – you know, signed up my name and then told my parents about it."

"You signed up _before_ you told them?"

"I didn't want them to stop me. I didn't want anyone to stop me. At that point, I just thought: 'what the hell'," Lexa replied with a sheepish shrug. "I just got so tired of the scrutiny. The finger pointing. The shame I feel for being _gay_."

Clarke shook her head. "You shouldn't feel –"

"I _knew_ that," Lexa cut in.

She was slightly annoyed at the repeated words that had been thrown at her since the moment she found out about the outing. She hated hearing that sentiment, that advice, because they _didn't_ understand. They would never know what it was like to be outed like that – without explicit permission or so much as a prior notice.

Lexa had gone to bed the night before all peaceful, still thinking about the amazing sex she had had with Costia few hours ago in a random broom closet. The next morning, the world had crashed down on her in the rudest of ways possible.

Taking a deep breath to hone in her annoyance, she cast an apologetic glance at Clarke before continuing softly, "But knowing and _knowing_ are two different things." She pointedly eyed the blonde, hoping that Clarke would understand what she meant. She was relieved when the blonde just nodded. "I guess I just…" Lexa squinted slightly as she found the photo of Clarke and her peers at the hospital again.

How could she explain this clearly? Was there even a good way of explaining it? During her first year on tour, a Captain had told her that no one would have understood; they had to be there themselves, experiencing the torrent of bullets showering down on them and the cruel sun beating on their backs and the laughter and sorrow built in one small bunker together, to _know_ what it was like to be in the army.

Her hands stopped rubbing together and came apart. Her right forefinger started twitching out of habit as she recalled carrying a heavy rifle during patrols and rounds. Her right foot shook as the memories of ambushes and operations rang through her head.

"Lexa." She inhaled sharply and looked again to her companion. "Where did you go?"

"Sorry," she breathed and blinked a few times, grasping onto her right hand with her left and suppressing the shakes of her food. "Sorry, I just –" She licked her lips. "In the army, I found my purpose. To do something for the country, in whatever capacity I can. That's my purpose. Not a – the one and only lesbian princess in the world. I don't – that's not how I want to make my name in the world." She then chuckled bitterly and hanged her head lower. "You know, the only time I felt even remotely good about being _that_ was when you called me iconic."

Clarke snorted and smiled. "Just saying the truth."

"Thank you, though."

"What for?"

Lexa gulped, trying to find the words. "I don't know, but thank you." She truly didn't. All she knew was that meeting Clarke when she had was the North Star she didn't know she needed – she couldn't very well tell the woman that without spooking her.

"Was it worth it?" Clarke asked then. "Joining the army. I mean –" She shifted her position again to sit properly on the chair and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. "There's the panic attack and the not sleeping. Was it worth it?"

"Yes," Lexa replied with no hesitation, causing the doctor to raise her brows. "I did _something_ out there. For this country and my family. I don't regret it. PTSD is…simply an undesirable side effect from it, and I don't like it, but I will bear it."

Clarke bit her lip and Lexa tried not to focus too much on it. They were having a serious talk right now, goddammit. She didn't come here to become a pervert. Actually, scratch that, she never _wanted_ to become a pervert under any circumstances.

She considered herself lucky that Clarke would even call her back and scold her for sending those flowers her way. She considered herself blessed that Clarke hadn't rejected her for showing up at her door and had even allowed her to sleep in her bed. She couldn't ask for more than that.

"Ever considered seeing someone about it?"

"Do you count?"

The blonde looked taken aback at the blatant question, but then she smiled sadly with a sympathetic look in her eyes. She shrugged and said, "I didn't study mental health, Lexa."

"It's not – I don't think I feel comfortable…talking to a stranger about it."

"I'm a stranger."

She rolled her eyes with a scoff. "You are the furthest thing from a stranger to me," she said honestly, enjoying the way Clarke appeared shocked again at her statement. "I feel comfortable talking to you, which is something I can say about only a few people in my life."

"And I am honored for that," Clarke remarked. She considered things for a bit, inserting a bit of silence between them. And then she said, "What if I find someone for you?" Lexa frowned. "I work in a hospital. I do know someone who's dealt with…PTSD patients before. Panic attacks and the sort." The frown deepened. "Maybe you'd feel more comfortable talking to someone who knows me?" she said hesitantly.

Lexa was of half the mind to say no to it on the go. She had refused to talk to the psychologist that her mother had hired when she first came back, adamant that some quack would never be able to help her in any way. She had been convinced that it was her own obstacle – no one fought for her, and she would have to face it head on. Even if it would haunt her the rest of her life, she was determined to go through it alone without dragging anyone into her state of nightmares.

Then she thought about the day her father had strolled into her office and pretty much called her out on her isolationist behavior since her return. She didn't even have to think hard to see the concern in her mother's and siblings' eyes the day she had blown up at them to get the hell out of her office. She hated that her father had to go to her bodyguard to know things about her, instead of coming to her himself – and that was of her own doing.

If she kept this up, there was a chance she could lose her family – she could lose everyone. Plus, the man her mother had hired was a stranger; no one knew him but a distant relative whose son went to him. Lexa didn't trust a distant relative; Lexa trusted Clarke.

Also, there was that hopeful glint in Clarke's eyes.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, I guess I'll try."

Clarke's grin almost made her decision seemed menial. But she had heard stories from her fellow soldiers about their experiences with psychologists, and she knew she wouldn't like it.

"If you send me flowers like you did last time, I'm gonna kick your ass."

Well, okay. There went potential romancing tactics. In the midst of her worries about what it would be like to actually talk to a professional about her condition, Lexa reminded herself to find alternatives to gifting flowers to Clarke.

* * *

"Okay, this is ridiculous. Now you don't come home too?" the king exclaimed as he sidled into her room after having passed by and saw her coming out of her closet.

Lexa blinked rapidly, fingers pausing in the twirling of the lollipop still in her mouth. She stared at her father, who seemed to be struggling between irate and glad. Slowly, she popped the candy out of her mouth and raised both hands in the air by her sides in a half shrug.

"Um, I'm home now…?" Unsure how to gauge his current mood, she decided to not challenge him too much. "Because I'm pretty sure that was my closet I just walked out of." Yeah, like that was gonna happen.

He rolled his eyes. "Do you have any idea how anxious your mother and I were when you didn't come home last night?"

She winced at the desperation that had seeped into his voice. Scratching her head with the hand that was still holding the lollipop, all she could do was offer a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I wasn't exactly planning on not coming home last night either."

After that ridiculously harrowing talk with Clarke that had made Lexa want to go back to bed, Clarke managed to persuade Lexa into one movie with her before leaving, promising popcorn and unhealthy soft drinks. The princess had claimed that the popcorn had lured her into staying, but the truth was that she had been convinced since the invitation came out of Clarke's mouth.

If asked, Lexa would vehemently deny it, because it was implausible and illogical and totally stalkerish. But the truth was that as long as it was Clarke asking, Lexa probably would have said yes anyway.

It was creepy and insane, and the brunette couldn't recall when it was that she had become so unbecoming of a woman, let alone a princess. She suspected it was more than half a year ago, when she was the victim of multiple gunshot wounds and almost lost a leg and was sent to a hospital where she met a pretty blonde doctor who made her laugh.

Two movies later, a knock sounded on the door and it turned out to be Gus. Honestly, if he hadn't knocked, she probably would have just stayed and watched more movies and found another excuse to sleep over. She felt slightly guilty for forgetting him, but once she had bidden her inevitable goodbye and promised to not be an idiot to Clarke, her guilt was assuaged when he told her that he had summoned his prodigy team to watch over the block while he went home to catch a few hours of shuteye.

So now she was here, twenty-four hours after she was supposed to be home, facing her father's non-wrath and feeling the guilt rise again at making her parents worry.

"Where were you?" Richmond demanded.

She shifted on her feet and popped the lollipop into her mouth again to have a good suck before popping it back out. "I'm home now."

He squinted. "Lexa."

No, the last time she told her father the slightest bit about Clarke was to get him off her back about her sleeping habits and her pulling away from the family. She couldn't tell him any more than that. Call her selfish, but Lexa wanted to keep Clarke to herself for as long as possible – preferably forever, but that wasn't likely, if their friendship was going where she hoped it was going.

She shook her head with determination. "There were things I had to take care of."

"Things that prevented you from coming home?"

"Unexpected complications came up."

Like her total exhaustion from dealing with diplomatic assholes in Sangeda and being entirely obsessed with the adorable kids that she had visited and the long flight to get her home. Like her inexplicable connection with a certain Clarke Griffin. Not that her father needed to know any of that.

"Do we need to have another talk about your late night habits again? Should I talk to Gus? Maybe your mother can talk to you this time."

"Dad, please." Lexa placed hand on her father's chest and shot him the most convincing look ever. To make it even more convincing, she threw in a pout – something that her mother was adamant always made him weak in the knees. "I'm fine," she insisted.

When Richmond tilted his head and looked at her in the way that _she_ always did when she was always trying to dig for answers, she knew just the way to avoid succumbing. After all, she was the one who inherited that look. So Lexa simply shoved the half-eaten lollipop into his mouth, eliciting an undignified yelp from the king.

She giggled and extended her arm to slink around his shoulders, guiding both of them towards the door and out of the room.

She placed one kiss on his cheek, took a moment to watch him suck on the lollipop, and asked, "So what's for dinner?"

Her family had all collected in the dining room when the youngest princess and the king emerged. The queen peppered with similar questions as her father, and this time, Lexa had to repeat that she was fine and she just had things to deal with until Storme succumbed, because the pout just didn't work the same way with the queen – supposed it was the strength of mothers, or something like that. Her siblings, knowing her tendency to keep things to her chest until she was ready to tell them, only shot her curious looks.

Dinner was boisterous. Raucous. Filled with laughter and stories from all directions. National discussions were carried out as well, as all five members of the royal family offered their suggestions to each other how they ought to handle certain matters with the departments they were involved with. Nothing was off the table, apart from the growing elephant that was Lexa's PTSD.

And she would love nothing more than to assuage their worries and reassure them that she was 100% fine. But as Clarke had mentioned, she was learning to be more self-aware, and there was no point deceiving them all and herself. Still, she wasn't lying when she had said that she was willing to try with this psychologist that Clarke was supposed to introduce.

She wanted things to stay this way. This happiness and tightness in this family – this bond that was unbreakable despite some setbacks. And if it meant her having to talk to someone about her issues, she was more than willing.

* * *

If seeing a psychologist was on the horizon, Lexa figured that she could start her own healing process by _not_ sneaking out in the middle of the night and stealing away Gus' sleeping hours. God only knew how long this would last; maybe tomorrow night she'd just repeat the cycle again – but one couldn't say she didn't try.

 _Still_ , despite that, she still found herself restless. Her right forefinger wouldn't stop twitching. The shadows in her room began to spook her as it grew darker and darker. She wanted so badly to remove the bedding from her much too comfortable bed and toss them on the floor. She needed hard packed soil and the distant noises of bombs setting off to lull her to sleep – even after four months.

That was how Lexa found herself wandering the corridors and hallways that was the infrastructure of the palace, nodding at Brigade agents and occasionally making conversation with a familiar face. Somehow, she discovered that her wandering her had led her to the kitchen – and Anya was in there gorging on a tub of ice-cream.

"Mom taught us better than that," Lexa said after knocking her knuckles loudly on the wooden panel to alert Anya of her presence.

She snatched up a spoon from a random drawer and sat opposite her sister at the island, gesturing for the ice-cream. No one had to know that she had deliberately seated herself with her back towards the door that she usually sneaked out of. Anya obliged, and Lexa scooped a whole spoonful of vanilla ice-cream into her mouth, humming in appreciation.

"Look who's talking," Anya deadpanned.

"I ate canned ham out of the can for three tours. Give me a break."

"One of these days, you won't be able to use that as an excuse anymore."

"Maybe," Lexa concurred. Then she shrugged with a mischievous smile. "That day's not today."

They traded ice-cream in silence for a few moments before Anya asked, "You ever gonna tell me about that girl you met?"

The spoon paused halfway in the air. Lexa looked up to see Anya staring at her pointedly, eyebrows raised and a smidge of hurt in her eyes.

Oh dear. Lexa couldn't really blame her sister for taking this a little hard, since it had been a habit of theirs to share things with each other before they shared things with anyone else – even Lincoln was excluded in this pact.

But then to be fair, her secrecy had been a thing since she was honorably discharged. She hadn't really talked with her family about anything even a smidgeon more than superficial, and Anya was just, unfortunately, a victim who got hurt more. Still, it was her fault for being so determined to keep a distance from them, and she couldn't really tell them it was because she was afraid that one day she would really blow up and they would get hurt more.

What happened the other day was an occurrence that Lexa had been actively avoiding by keeping her distance – and she suspected that it wasn't the worst of it.

"I'm sorry I've been…not around lately," Lexa murmured, lowering the tub on the island.

Anya scoffed, shaking her head. "It's not 'lately'."

Lexa closed her eyes. "I know."

"I'm worried, okay? You came back and you won't talk to us. Not even me. And we've been walking on tiptoes around you ever since, like you're some kind of bomb or something." Lexa winced. " _Shit_. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have –"

"It's okay," Lexa cut in with a hopefully forgiving smile. "I know. I know that…there are issues. I am very aware that I've been behaving in a…less than ideal way," she stammered, struggling to find the words. Why wasn't it this hard when she was talking with Clarke? Lexa sighed and rubbed her face with her hands. "I just didn't want to – it was so bad, Anya. It was so bad." Anya hummed in acknowledgement, tilting her head. "And you guys are so _good_. The things I saw out there – I just didn't want to bring them home, you know. This is – this is _this_ , and that is _that_."

"But you're _you_ , Lexa," Anya affirmed. "You're our baby sister. You're Mom and Dad's baby girl. And we _don't_ care. We just want you to be okay. We miss you. _I_ miss you."

"I'm sorry," Lexa whispered.

Her sister shook her head and reached out to tangle their hands together across the island. She offered a reassuring smile and ducked down her head to meet Lexa's eyes. "Don't be sorry. Just be _here_ , do you know what I mean?"

Lexa squeezed the hand in hers and smiled back. "I will certainly try my best," she promised, thinking about the psychologist that Clarke had suggested.

"So…this girl?"

With her free hand, Lexa tossed her spoon in her sister's direction.

* * *

 **holy shit that conversation with clarke sucked the life out of me - so many rewrites went into that. i hope y'all like this chapter. don't stay tuned though. the next update will come when it comes lol**


	7. in nocte consilium

**do you ever get the feeling like "oh it's the beginning of semester i've never been so chill oH MY FUCKING GOD THERE ARE SO MANY ASSIGNMENTS DUE IN AN HOUR HOLY FUCK MY LIFE" because yeah that's what i'm feeling right now**

 **i'm gonna be _swamped_ here on out and i wasn't sure if i will get the chance to update so i figured y'all deserve this one chapter before i bid myself into an update hibernation mode. i'll try to open up the word doc when i get the chance, but it's pretty slim to be honest, so you'll have to bear with this.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

"Your mom's hot!"

"That. Doesn't. Mean. You. Tell. Her. My. Shit!" Clarke pronounced each word with a pointed but gentle smack of the cushion against Raven's arm. She had elected to ignore her friend's declaration of how hot her mother was.

"Hey, cripple here!"

"Oh, I remember her saying that she'll break your other leg," Octavia pointed out from across the room, where she was perched at the bar in the kitchen, enjoying a tub of ice-cream and not seeming to care that one of her best friends was going to further cripple her other best friend.

Raven, having paused five seconds after hearing Octavia's nonchalant announcement, widened her eyes to comical size and staggered backwards towards the arm of the couch, somewhat gracefully toppling over and finding her footing despite the bum leg, and scrambled towards the bar to hide behind Octavia.

Clarke, who had a habit of using her career as an excuse to avoid the gym – look, according to her phone, her daily step count passed over 15,000, that should be enough – found a little difficulty in following the Latina, but she managed to do so anyway. She stood in front of Octavia, whom Raven was swaying around on the stool to avoid being in direct opposition with the blonde.

"Woman up and face me," Clarke sneered.

Raven shook her head resolutely. "I am not a woman," she declared.

"Oh, really? That's not what Bellamy tells –"

"No, stop!" Octavia shrieked, and Clarke suddenly found herself staring at an ice-cream slathered spoon very close to her face, almost crossing her eyes. "I do not want to know about how womanly my brother thinks Raven is." Her eyes went a little empty for a moment before she shuddered violently and swung around on her stool to face Raven. "Why does it have to be him?" she hissed. "Why'd you have to sleep with my brother? Why does it have to my brother? What _even_ are you with my brother?"

Raven pondered those questions before she shrugged with an exaggeratedly innocent look on her face. "Your brother's hot. I like hot people. What I am with your brother is none of your business."

" _Yes_. Just like me and Lexa is none of my mother's business. You get it now!" Clarke interjected, finding a chance to slither around Octavia so there wasn't anything blocking them.

Raven sighed and nodded in acquiescence. "Look, I'm sorry. We were on the phone and it just slipped! You know how your mother is."

As a matter of fact, Clarke did. Clarke had spent a majority of her life living in the same house as that woman, and she knew exactly what kind of person her mother was. Octavia had found the woman scary and Raven had simply allowed herself to be coddled into the manipulative arms of Abby Griffin, thus surrendering herself as the unknowing spy into Clarke's life.

Abby Griffin was a concerning mother who really did care for her family, no doubt. Clarke could still remember the way she had shut herself off to the world after her husband had passed away, at the expense of the care that her daughter still needed. But Abby could also be demeaning and demanding and all-around selfish – Clarke didn't even want to delve into whether her mother did all that on purpose. There was this energy around her that made her irresistible in a sense; people found it difficult to lie to her, reject her, or do anything that was against her in any way – one wouldn't even think about pissing her off, because next thing they knew, their career had careened down the waterhole.

Clarke loved her mother – she truly did. But if she spent more than a day in the same room as the woman without the barest of space for air, she would either strangle herself or set the room on fire.

"I don't understand why you're still so pissed at her," Raven voiced out, settling on the stool next to Octavia and snatching the ice-cream, eliciting an undignified yelp from the shorter woman.

Narrowing her eyes, Clarke shook her head at the Latina and said, "You did not just say that."

"All I'm saying that she cares about you and she's really trying. The least you could do is give her a chance."

"Just because you're best friends with her doesn't mean I have to be."

Unnervingly calm about the jab, which was a testament to their close friendship, the engineer lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug as she handed the tub of ice-cream back to Octavia. "Abby's been more of a mom to me than my own since the moment I met her. I don't want to get in between you two. I just want to be your best friend and that girl Abby remembers to check up on."

Surely, those words were simply words and nothing was really implied by it except what Raven implied on the surface. And just like Raven did earlier, Clarke let it go by suppressing the brief appearance of the green-eyed-monster in her mind and shooting a mocking glare at the engineer.

"Stop spying on me for my mother."

"I'll try not to."

That was the best she could get from a running mouth like Raven Reyes, so she could only hope for the best and settle for what she could get.

When she saw Raven about to reach for Octavia's tub again and the absolutely animalistic glint in Octavia's eyes that indicated nothing nice, Clarke slapped away Raven's hand from the tub and rounded the bar for the fridge, where she pulled out two more tubs of ice-cream, which Raven had conveniently forgotten that they had purchased the day Lexa decided to drop by. She thrust one in Raven's direction before sitting on the last stool and opening up her own tub.

In the silence, as per the three women's tradition since that afternoon after they had sat for their last SAT paper, they shamelessly gouged on individual tubs of Ben & Jerry's, temporarily forgetting about the carb fest and their body weight for the day. Clarke had only just finished one-third of her tub when Octavia ruined it.

"So there's a you and Lexa, huh?"

Was it possible to kill someone by tossing a one-third empty ice-cream tub at someone's head?

* * *

If one were looking for adrenaline junkies in a hospital, they could either find them in the Intensive Care Unit or in the trauma department.

Every single trauma attending went in that day equipped with the anticipation of at least _one_ bout of heart racing and sweat driven case; every single resident or intern assigned to the trauma department was all appropriately warned of exactly how messy it could get and how _mean_ the attendings could be in the face of an emergency.

The ER could become very bloody very quickly, which was perhaps why the early pioneers of hospitals decided to install bays and curtains, if only to keep things as isolated as possible. On a bad day, the patients who came in would be diagnosed with simple things like appendicitis or needed their rectums cleared. On a good day, there would be bags of blood and desperate yells for assistance and incensed discussions of the best treatment in the shortest span of time.

Because that was what doctors who went into trauma truly wanted. They wanted to save lives, the more hectic the better, in a limited timeframe that would require to literally squeeze all their brain juice out for the most creative treatment methods that wouldn't compromise the patients' lives.

It sounded crazy. It certainly sounded cruel.

The thing was that the doctors swore the Hippocratic Oath – and what better way to make good on that oath than the kind of patients that they had to face in the ER.

Clarke had just come out of the waiting room to tell a husband that his wife was safe and being transported to a room for overnight monitoring right now. She didn't tell him about how his wife went into V-Fib for thirty seconds in the ER, which was why they had to perform emergency surgery on her. A surgery in which she had to work with _Finn Collins_ , of all people, to get her heart working again, prevent her from losing another two pints of blood, and remove the scalpel that she had _accidentally_ swallowed from her trachea. She didn't tell him about the way she had sat on a random chair in the OR for another thirty seconds after the surgery was successful, catatonic and blank, and then she had to laugh at herself at the _complete_ bizarreness of being part of the trauma department.

The guy almost lost his wife. He didn't need to know about the ordeal the woman had to go through to survive another day and see him again. He certainly did not need to know how much his wife's doctor laughed maniacally at yet another random surgery that required the kind of precision that, sometimes, only a trauma doctor could afford.

She had just swapped her bloody scrubs for a fresh set and was on her way to get a piping hot sugary coffee to celebrate another win on this night when the bane of her existence sidled up next to her. Honestly, she couldn't even celebrate right without feeling even the slightest bit of annoyance; she suspected her mother must have placed some sort of voodoo on her or something, trying to wear her down to actually see the moron to be what he _wasn't_.

"That was great, huh?" Finn commented, slapping his hands together enthusiastically and disturbing the hallways that had gone quiet for the after-midnight rounds.

"Yep."

"This is the first time I've ever worked with you."

"Hopefully, the last time," she replied unironically, coming to a stop in front of the elevators and pressing the 'down' button.

"Well, I don't."

She hummed in response, forcing herself to remain calm and not allow his presence to stifle her celebratory mood. Trying her luck, she turned around slightly to locate the nurses' station, but nope. Octavia had already left.

A ding alerted her to an elevator car's arrival and she quickly stepped into it, silently groaning when Finn joined her.

"Let me buy you coffee."

"I can afford my own coffee."

"Come on, to celebrate our win."

She turned sideways to look at him with a pair of narrowed eyes and stern lips, to which he appropriately froze at. "You almost tore a hole in the patient's left lung because you wrongfully located the scalpel. You mistook your own scalpel as the scalpel _in_ the patient's body," she snapped, finding gratification in his whitening features, which she didn't even think was possible. "This is not _our_ win. It's _my_ win. And come morning, when Dr. Kane comes in, you can be sure that I'll report your pathetic ass to him."

"Clarke –"

"It's Dr. Griffin," she promptly corrected him, making a small noise of victory when the elevator reached her intended floor and the doors slid open. "And stop talking to my mother!" she yelled over her shoulder as she quickly walked away from him, putting as much distance between them as possible.

"Clarke, please." Finn quickly found his way over to her once she stopped by the coffee cart, holding onto her elbow. "Please don't do this."

"You're a hazard to this hospital and our patients," she commented coldly, fishing out her phone that had just buzzed in her pocket.

 _Lexa (1:02a.m.): This Avicenna statue is really uncanny._

She frowned, tuning out Finn and trying to figure out what the text was supposed to mean. She groaned and snapped her eyes up from her phone to meet Finn's dull brown eyes with a glare when he had tugged on her forearm a little too roughly. He let it go sheepishly, but evidently, it wasn't enough to stop him from pathetically begging her.

And then through Finn's whines and complaints and the occasional tunes on the hospital's intercom system, it finally got through her head. There was only one Avicenna statue she knew of – and it had been the one to fascinate her and cause her to shake her head in amusement when she had first seen it outside the hospital all those months ago.

Forgoing the coffee cart because who needed coffee when there was a better pick-me-up waiting for her outside, she easily sidestepped Finn's increasingly frustrating clinging to her side and made for the exit. Once she was outside, she had to send a brief moment of appreciation to herself from fifteen minutes ago to have the decency of pulling on her coat over her scrubs, because it was actually pretty cold outside.

Her feet found the familiar path to the aforementioned Avicenna located just several hundred yards south of the entrance, in the middle of a mini maze that was meant to entertain the children. Soon enough, Clarke found herself looking at Lexa from the back, and the hulking bodyguard was smoking several feet away, keeping a good distance to keep the smoke away from the princess but also close enough to keep his eye on her.

She could barely respond to him noticing her when she found herself barreled into from the back, sending her tumbling forward and barely finding her footing before a pair of slender but definitely strong arms caught her. She panted slightly and took a few seconds to recover from the vertigo attack before looking up to find Lexa staring at her with concern, still holding onto her waist with no sign of letting at all.

Clarke gulped and tried not to squeeze the biceps under her fingers as she stood upright and smiled sheepishly at the princess, to which Lexa only responded with a raise of her brow and a curious look in her eyes. Somehow, for no reason at all, that look made her all the more attractive to the doctor.

"Clarke, please." Right, the culprit of her current awkward situation.

Lexa's eyes shifted over her shoulder, curiosity increasing but also wary at the same time. "Who's that?" she asked, low enough that only Clarke could hear.

Shooting the brunette a reassuring smile, the doctor spun around and out of the comforting grip of Lexa's hands on her hips to face the bumbling idiot still following her. Her words died on her lips as she saw that his focus was not on her but the woman standing behind her, mouth ajar and eyes lighting up in recognition. She reached behind her blindly, and thankfully enough, Lexa got the hint to take her hand and squeezed her fingers.

"Finn," she snapped, calling back his attention. His eyes traveled from the princess to her, still shocked but clearly, he wasn't stupid enough to not see what exactly was happening. "Leave me alone."

He blinked a few times, looking at Lexa and Clarke then Lexa then Clarke again. And then he stood up straighter, closing his mouth, and his terrified and awed expression slowly transformed into one of smugness and pure slyness.

Just judging by that rat face of his, the blonde could already see what was coming next, and she'd be lying if she said her heart had not jumped several erratic beats at the implication. The only thing that tied her back down and offered her even a smidge of relief was the squeeze on her fingers, the reminder that Lexa was still holding on to her hand.

"So you're fucking the princess," Finn drawled.

And just like that, Lexa's stiffness could be felt right down to her fingertips and this time, Clarke had to be the one to do the squeezing as she stared Finn down with enough determination and flare to burn down just about anyone in her path. She clenched her jaw and tilted her head at the hazardous doctor, not even bothering to grace him with a reply.

He wasn't worth it. If she was going to explain her odd relationship with Lexa to anyone, it would be to someone worth even an ounce of her respect. And Finn Collins just wasn't it.

"I know a reporter at Polis Sentinel."

Clarke narrowed her eyes. "Are you blackmailing me?"

He shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest and smirking at them. "I mean, I won't object to being a part of this party." At that, he shamelessly let his eyes wander over Clarke's body, sending a bout of disgusted shivers through her nerves, before doing the same to the seething princess behind her, approving and creepy all the same.

Before the blonde could retort, Lexa had already loosened her fingers around Clarke's hand and suddenly, Clarke found herself standing behind the princess, whom had her posture set in one that was determined to protect Clarke – arm outstretched and back so tall that Clarke almost couldn't see Finn over her shoulder.

For a few long moments, they just stood there, Lexa in front of Clarke and Finn still very reassured where he was and Gustus having already stamped out his cigarette and looking ready to land a punch or two if he had to. And then something unexpected happen.

Lexa _chuckled_. As if they hadn't just been blackmailed with something that they had never done, though the media would never just take their word for it. As if her life wasn't just about to be catapulted to levels so high that it would be enough to cause permanent damage the moment she fell. As if her inane protectiveness over Clarke hadn't just given Finn the confirmation he needed. As if she didn't see Finn whip out his phone to not so subtly take a photo of her and Clarke together.

"There's nothing else the press can do to me that would be worse than what they had done last time," Lexa started.

Clarke had never heard this voice in such close vicinity before; cold and unbearably icy, as if the princess was prepared for war and removed all her humanity in order to confront the terribleness stretching out before her.

"And may I just remind you, I am the Second Princess of the Polis Kingdom. My father is the sole monarch of this country, King Richmond the Second, Chief Commander of the military forces and headof the Parliament and Congress. My mother is Queen Storme the First, the sole heir of the mayor of Trikru and the commander of three naval shipyards throughout the country. If you speak a word of my appearance here or my _friendship_ with Clarke to anyone, keep in mind that I have all the power I need in this country to strip you down, tear you up, and split you and your useless existence into pieces of nothing. My family might not deign to resort to authoritarian methods in all the years of its rule over this country, but do not underestimate the loyalty they have for family," Lexa threatened, breathing heavily with each syllable that did not fail in pronouncing the power she held simply by being born into the right family of the right country.

Clarke found satisfaction in the way Finn's skin paled again at the threats that she was certain were substantive and Lexa wouldn't hesitated to execute. As she listened to Lexa's voice slowly but surely spell out exactly how she could ruin Finn's life, she couldn't deny that it was all kinds of hots and doing all kinds of indescribable things to her. She had never imagined that fear could be such an effective aphrodisiac, but here they were.

"Now, I'm not sure what exactly you're begging Clarke for, but I am certain you deserve it. Whatever she's going to do, I won't stop her. But here's the thing: it's far better than what I am going to do to you if you so much as touch a hair on the good doctor here. I advise you to scram and take what you can get, Finn Collins," Lexa added as a measure of ensuring Finn knew that she knew his name now, and he better be careful.

The man in question stood frozen where he was, quiet and meek. If Clarke had strained to listen, she would be hearing him whimpering and almost peeing himself at the intimidating stare that Lexa must be sending him. For a second, she almost felt sympathetic, because she had seen that look on Lexa's face before, way back when they hadn't known each other and the princess had just woken up in a strange bed in a strange room with a strange woman in a coat in the same strange room as her.

Lexa huffed when Finn had stood there for too long. "What did I just say?" she snapped.

In mere seconds, Finn was gone from the middle of the makeshift maze, leaving Lexa and Clarke and Gustus and Avicenna alone, practically stirring up escape smoke at his trail.

It was only when she inhaled and could no longer inhale the stifling air of self-righteous white male stench that Clarke allowed the relief to enter her system. She stumbled back a little and leaned against Avicenna, hoping that the heroic figure who had brought many advances to her field of work would forgive her for this temporary move of disrespect. She just needed to breathe.

She hadn't realized how anxious she had gotten at Finn's threatening words, so much so that she couldn't even properly react but stare blankly when Lexa had swapped their positions. Right now, it all came rushing to her, triggering her fingers to tremble almost violently and sweat to gather at the back of her neck and her breathing to stagger as she respirated.

When she finally looked up from her sneakers after having managed to get her fingers to stabilize, Lexa had already turned around to look at her, hands buried in her hoodie pockets and an apologetic look on her face.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Clarke frowned. "For what?"

Lexa raised her brows, shrugged, and gestured over her shoulder. "If you hadn't known me, if I hadn't come here…" she drifted off, allowing Clarke to fill in the blanks herself. _I put you at risk_ , was the basics of her implication.

"You didn't do this."

"Come on, Clarke –"

"No, you come on!" Clarke exclaimed, pushing off the statue to come to her full height. "Finn's a pathetic asshole! He's nothing but a pain in my ass. He would have found something else to blackmail me with. If it wasn't for you being here, I probably would have agreed to whatever he demanded."

"But it's me. I'm the reason he blackmailed you just now. Our friendship is the reason I had to use my family name to scare him off."

" _God_ , Lexa, what did I tell you?" Clarke snapped, glaring at the brunette in front of her. Lexa looked down at her feet, sheepish and still guilty. "You can't scare me off that easily," she reminded the princess.

Between the two of them, Clarke was panting from exertion and the excitement of the night, while Lexa was shuffling her feet and getting ahold of her own guilt. Meanwhile, Gustus was probably just enjoying the show or maybe hating on Clarke for even daring to be this bold with his charge.

And honestly, the blonde was actually quite surprised at her own determination to retain…whatever this was she had with one of the most important people in this country – one whose life and death could cause ripples and instigate tsunamis with simply a few words and a meaningful stare. Clarke would know; god only knew how many tsunamis the brunette had set off in her chest by just staring at her with those starkly green eyes of hers.

Normally, she would have just given up. Nothing was worth this much trouble – or, at least, that was what she used to think.

But apparently, a few hours of light-hearted and unmeaningful conversation in a military hospital and a random note scribbled on a decaying paper were enough to keep her tethered. So much so that not even six months of silence would keep her away.

Then Lexa nodded in acquiescence and lifted her head to meet Clarke's eyes, to which Clarke inclined her head in response.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Clarke asked.

"I wanted to tell you that I'm gonna be seeing Dr. Terran again."

"You had a session with Niylah?"

"Yeah, this afternoon."

Clarke's frowning mouth stretched into a gratified grin at the revelation, and she couldn't help but step forward to engulf Lexa in a hug. The brunette's arms flapped around for awhile, obviously unsettled by the sudden intimacy, but eventually, she hugged Clarke back as well.

And _god_ , the doctor didn't want to let go. She never wanted to let go.

Back when she was ten years old, her family was still whole. Jake Griffin used to take her on plane rides on his shoulders every night, because apparently, she was a child who refused to sleep until she got a plane ride. So he would secure her tiny figure on his shoulders and started racing through the rooms downstairs – the kitchen, the dining room, the guest bathroom, the foyer, and the living room. There were always two rounds, and sometimes even more if he felt like it. Then he would race her up the stairs to her room, followed by her mother who still had warmth in her heart.

Then before they left the room and shut the lights, they would both pull her into a tight hug, whispering gentle good nights into her ears.

This felt a little – too much – like that.

But reality had to set in. Last time, it was in the form of her parents kissing her temples and shutting off the lights and turning on the night light. This time, it came in the form of her pager buzzing on her pants, jerking them both apart. She momentarily cursed her job for breaking her moment.

She shot Lexa a regretful stare, to which the princess only nodded in assurance and jerked her chin towards the entry point where she came from.

"Let your bodyguard sleep," Clarke said, nodding in Gustus' direction.

"I'm planning to. I just wanted to let you know."

Clarke's grin gentled into a small smile. She reached out to squeeze Lexa's elbow before heading towards the entry point. Before she disappeared out of view, she spun around to face Lexa, fast enough to catch the wistful glint on her expression before the brunette quickly wiped it away.

"That was hot by the way – the way you threatened him."

Lexa blinked a few times, and then she – the damn woman – _dared_ to smirk. She tilted her head and shifted her weight to the other foot. "Yeah?"

Clarke wanted to just get onto her knees right there and plead Lexa to do ungodly things to her. But instead, she settled for a gentle and meek "Yeah" before escaping the piercing hot stare that only Lexa could manage to do, sending a totally different kind of shivers down Clarke's spine, which lingered long after she had finished her shift five hours later.

* * *

"You know, when you said you referred a patient to me, never in my wildest dreams had I thought it'd be the fucking princess."

Clarke looked up from the newspaper – oh, reading the newspaper, she'd missed doing _that_ – and Niylah sitting down in the other empty chair at the table with her own paper cup of coffee. She allowed herself a momentary mourning for another delayed reading of yesterday's news and folded the newspaper, dedicating all her attention to her friend.

"Tell me you didn't scare her off," Clarke decried.

Niylah gasped and dropped her jaw. "What do you mean scare _her_ off? You're lucky I didn't just run out and abandon my practice right there."

Clarke scoffed, lifting her own cup of mocha to her lips. "The Niylah I know isn't such a scaredy cat." Niylah wrinkled her nose in skepticism but didn't offer another word. "Your first session was yesterday, right?" Niylah nodded in affirmation. "How was she?"

"You know I can't –"

"No, I know about the whole doctor-patient confidentiality clause, Niylah. I'm a doctor myself," Clarke reminded the psychologist, emphasizing her point by waving her hand over her body. "I just meant if she's coming back." Clarke would have asked Lexa herself this morning, but she had been a little too aroused by the princess' act of intimidation and much too proud of Lexa for keeping her promise that she had forgotten.

"She is."

"Good."

"So how exactly did you become friends with the second daughter of the Royal Family, huh?" Niylah questioned, eyes bright with curiosity and entire body leaning forward as if they were sharing the biggest secrets of all time – though that wasn't entirely untrue; her friendship with Lexa right now was the biggest secret she had ever had to harbor, but it didn't feel as much like a burden as all the other secrets she had to hide.

The doctor sighed and didn't even try to pretend that she wasn't going to tell Niylah. The woman was a psychologist – there was no better secret keeper than her. Plus, their history together was enough to reassure Clarke that there was nothing to fear from Niylah.

She launched into the story how she met Lexa in the military hospital in Libya, describing the torrent of emotions she had felt between the ten minutes from seeing the princess on her table for the first time to the moment she decided to kick out staff who would be too nervous to properly function in the operating theatre. What she didn't tell Niylah was how mindbogglingly stunning she had found Lexa once they had cleaned the blood and dirt off the woman or how mind-bendingly different Lexa was from the way the press had portrayed her or how magnetized she had felt towards the then-soldier within thirty minutes of talking to her.

Those were not for anyone to know. Those were for her; beautiful memories retained in her hippocampus regardless of what could happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or many days in the future to her and Lexa. No one had the right to them. No one deserved to get even a trailer of those of memories, not even Lexa, and certainly not Niylah, regardless of their history.

Niylah showed the appropriate responses to her story, from gob smacked to impressed. In the end, all she could say was that of all the people to have this encounter, she wasn't surprised that it was Clarke Griffin.

"In your professional opinion," Clarke began and smiled when Niylah hummed in that exaggeratedly wise tone of hers, "what does it mean when someone shows up at your place of work in the middle of the night just to tell you that they did something they thought you'd be proud of?"

There was a blank expression on the psychologist's face at first, but it eventually shifted into one of knowingness. Nothing really did skip the keen eye of Dr. Niylah Terran; it was how she became such a popular psychologist within the region and managed to charge such high fees without receiving any complaints.

Still, keen eye aside, Niylah was kind enough not to call Clarke out on this not so subtle revelation. And the doctor also knew she could trust Niylah with this one little secret as well.

"I think it means that you are very important to them. Perhaps one of the most important, if not _the_ most."

Clarke hummed, unable to help the little smile twisting the corner of her lips as she thought about the short time she spent in the makeshift maze outside the hospital with Avicenna as witness not even twelve hours ago. She nodded in acceptance of Niylah's succinct answer and felt a little lighter when she downed her cup of mocha.

* * *

 _Clarke (3:42p.m.): u cldve just textd ya know_

 _Lexa (3:56p.m.): I could have._

 _Clarke (3:57p.m.): but u didnt_

 _Lexa (4:02p.m.): I didn't._

 _Clarke (4:06p.m.): im glad u came to the hospital_

 _Lexa (4:06p.m.): Of course you were. You thought it was hot._

 _Clarke (4:06p.m.): im nvr talking to u ever again_

* * *

 **yes, clarke has horrendous text speak, but she's a doctor, she's too busy for grammar and correct spelling. she turned off autocorrect because she hates it. also, that's not the end you'll see of finn, unfortunately.**


	8. a mari usque ad mare

**hello, i am back! i have three weeks until the end of the semester and almost everything has fizzled out except for a couple of presentations and reflection essays. there's time on my hands now - well, not much, but enough for me to pump this out for stupid lexa and clarke god they're so stupid. so yay!**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

This Thursday was rainy. It began with a drizzle ten minutes after five in the morning. And Lexa, having just gotten out of bed, didn't think it was a big deal. After having waded through waist deep rivers, hiding under torn rooves or in the middle of the forest while there was a storm going on, shooting at her enemies while pretty much having no visuals due to the sheets of rain, a little drizzle wasn't a problem.

She'd changed accordingly and headed out to the garden. It was still within the borders of the palace, so there was no Gustus waiting for her, but the security team was still present, posted at all possible entry points and eyes wide with a guardedness that only one tasked with protecting the royal family could have. She began her morning routine of swimming at least twenty laps in the outdoor pool, before they opened it up for outsiders and visitors, when all was quiet and she could still hear her feet pounding the pavement and the air was still chilly.

Except she couldn't complete her swim that usually lasted for an hour, because twenty minutes into it, the clouds began to have their conference right over Polis, and everyone who was out in the open air became victims to their angry spats.

Lexa was, unsurprisingly, unhappy about it.

After her trip to Sangeda and her talk with Clarke, she had tried to stay home at night and not venture out on walks at the park at the expense of Gustus' rest. The first week was difficult. She lied in bed and closed her eyes but all she could see was an endless expanse of darkness while being vividly awake.

The second week, she started seeing the therapist Clarke had recommended, and Dr Niylah Terran recommended her to do things that could expend her energy so tremendously that she would have no choice but be knocked out. Lexa was skeptical at first, but she had gone home and started around the palace for an hour straight, ignoring the weird looks the staff and her family were sending her, and lo and behold, she went straight to bed and just snored her life off.

The only caveat was that it didn't really matter what time she slept or how long she intended to sleep, she would still wake up in cold sweat at exactly five in the morning. The last thing she saw would always be the face of one of the people she had lost overseas, begging her to save them.

So what did she do? She started twice a day, an hour each. If only to spend more energy, to exhaust herself, to drive the vivid images in her head less vivid.

Because of the rain, she didn't get to swim a full hour – the image was still lingering in her head; Corporal Hunter staring at her with a gauntness to his cheeks and a hateful expression on his face.

"This is good," Niylah commented when Lexa had come in with a tall cup of black coffee and a haunted look in her eyes for their fifth session.

Lexa wanted to bolt it right out of there, curse the hell out of this quack and never come back again. Her mind was too muddled to even remember that she actually _liked_ Niylah, despite the psychiatrist's very piercing eyes and poker face and annoying hums. Or maybe she liked the other woman because of those things – because Niylah was one of the rare few people who could see through her with just one look.

The first time Lexa had walked into Niylah's office, the woman had nearly jumped out of her skin, then proceeded to literally jump out of her chair behind the desk to shake the princess' hand, eyes wide and forehead already sweating despite the room being air-conditioned. It was difficult to reconcile that Niylah to the Niylah four sessions later.

Because, apparently, the first session was just a warm up, and the second session was where the real work began. Niylah had managed to poke at holes that Lexa wasn't even aware existed, asking her questions and questions and questions and constantly trying to rile Lexa up. By then, it was already too late – Lexa already liked her.

It was no wonder that she and Clarke were friends. Or maybe more. Lexa had wondered, but she never did ask. Because she knew they were in a professional setting, and it would be inappropriate to just bring it up in a session. Plus, she wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

There were only two things she knew when it came to Niylah Terran: one was that Lexa liked her for some godforsaken reason, and the other was that she hated coming out of every session. Every session felt like a marathon of its own – all that self-exploration and trying to figure out what the psychologist was trying to get out of this particular session, all the probing and the forcing herself to open up because, apparently, that was meant to be comforting.

And it was true, she supposed. Every time she had a session, Lexa always found herself going home lighter and easier to smile. Sleep still didn't come easy, because she still wasn't sure if she wanted to sleep when the cost of it was to see those faces again.

But the second she came out of the office was a whole different story. The exhaustion wasn't sleepiness – it was a toll that pulled on her muscles, weighed down her joints, and numbed her brain. The kind of dullness that she had experienced every time she watched a fellow soldier die. It wasn't something she wanted to bring home to – she refused to go home until she had calmed down enough and regained enough of her personality to not have them suspicious.

The Thursday was still rainy, though not as heavy as this morning, when she came out of the building empty handed, having drained her coffee during her fifth session with Niylah. She tugged the bill of her cap lower to avoid being recognized and nodded at Gustus so he would follow along.

"What are we doing today?" she asked, forcing herself to talk and act as normal as possible.

Niylah had said something about behaving like normal would normalize behavior, and in time, it wouldn't feel so forced. Lexa had called bullshit, and she was only forcing herself now to prove the psychologist wrong.

Plus, oddly enough, Gustus always had good suggestions to uplift her post-therapy slump. There was one time he brought her to a putt-putt course and she had had one of the best times since she returned from Libya.

"Visit Clarke."

Lexa blinked. She stopped short in the middle of sidewalk, not even caring that they were being drizzled on right now. The both of them had been through war and back; their immunity were pretty much up there. A little rain didn't mean shit.

"Did you just say visit Clarke?" Gustus nodded. "Gus, you don't like her." As much as it pained her, he didn't, and Lexa knew him well enough to know that it took time for him to like things and no amount of convincing would work.

Gustus gswimted. "You do."

Lexa raised her brows, huffing a disbelieving sound. She glanced her around them, focusing on the plants and streetlight poles and windows looking into various shops, trying to spot a camera or anything that would indicate she was being pranked right now. But Gustus looked the same as he did when she looked back at him – stoic and unmoved, save for an impatient twitch to his beard covered lips.

"Does Penelope like that jungle growing on your face?"

"I will not dignify that with an answer."

"Honestly, how does she even let you eat her –"

"Your _Royal Highness_ ," Gustus bit out, though not out of anger, but of exasperation. His eyes displayed pools of impatience and fatherly disbelief, and he had one hand in the air, like he was struggling between scratching his head or pointing a finger in her face.

Lexa giggled. She could never get tired of this, even though he'd been by her side since she was a kid. She whipped out her phone, not forgetting to place a playful kiss on her bodyguard's cheek, and dialed Clarke's number.

* * *

The receptionist had recognized her, though Lexa wasn't so surprised by that. Sure, the cap and the sunglasses were always helpful, but only when she didn't have to purposely talk to anyone. And she refused to wear a scarf – those things were suffocating and hot and reminded a little too much of the fatigues that she had refused to allow her mother to burn.

Damn her parents for being such beautiful and benevolent leaders that everyone loved them, so much so that they loved the kids as much too, despite them having done exactly nothing to contribute to this nation thus far. They couldn't have been a little uglier or crueler, if only to ease their children's lives.

The receptionist – a boy who didn't seem older than twenty – had widened his eyes and almost squealed if not for Gustus hulking presence behind her. Yes, the man was helpful in occasions like this. She smiled at the receptionist, grabbed a random tissue paper, signed her name, and offered the piece to him while making her inquiry.

He could barely stutter out the instructions, but he was legible enough that she managed to find her way through the hallways and the doors. Plus, thank god for the instruction plaques hanging overhead.

She turned another corner and located the second door to her right, opened it, and almost felt her heart melt right over there. She shook her head, unable to resist the small chuckle from escaping her throat as she watched the scene before her.

"You're killing me," she remarked, taking her eyes away from the pile of puppies that were currently climbing onto Clarke's lap and zeroing in on the one that the blonde held in the crook of her arms while feeding it milk from a bottle.

" _Oh my god_ ," a familiar-looking woman exclaimed, scrambling to her feet and almost stepping on one puppy as she tried to stand as straight as possible. "Oh my god," she repeated, except in the form of a hiss at the blonde still sitting on the floor, totally undisturbed by Lexa's appearance here.

"Octavia, calm down," Clarke said and slowly stood up as well to not jostle the puppy too much. She threw the woman – Octavia, apparently – a warning look before making her way over to Lexa, not forgetting to offer a nod to Gustus. "I was wondering why you texted me."

"Gus suggested I hang out with you today." No, she wasn't going to tell Clarke about her post-therapy habits. Not yet, anyway.

The doctor raised her brows and cast a look at Gustus standing behind her. "Really?"

Gustus gswimted half-heartedly.

"I thought you don't like me."

Gustus gswimted again.

"You know, one of these days, you're gonna have to actually talk to me, right?"

Gustus was quiet for a moment, which made Lexa turn around. He was staring at Clarke with his eyes narrowed. Not in an intimidating way – Lexa wouldn't have allowed it if it was. He was…perturbed. Uncertain of the blonde. _Unused_ to the blonde. His first priority since the moment Lexa had been born was to protect Lexa – be her father when her own father couldn't, guard her, make sure she ate, make sure she slept, make sure she _breathed._ So this blonde was completely out of his wheelhouse. He didn't know how to handle her, really.

This was intriguing. This was amusing. This was fun, especially after the hour she had had with Niylah. She had never seen Gustus like this before, unable to decide between protectiveness and curiosity. Lexa decided she liked this. Because she related so much. That time she had opened her eyes back in Libya and saw this pretty doctor struggling on what exactly to call her, she had been gone – she just didn't want to admit it until she saw Clarke again six months later.

Lexa decided she liked this.

Gustus decided on gswimting again.

Gustus was also right – he somehow almost always was; it was kind of annoying. The weight that had been laden onto her shoulders since she left Niylah's office was half gone with only just a glimpse at Clarke's face; the rest of it, she had to get rid on her own – no external forces could help.

But this was enough. This was better than nothing. Once again, Clarke Griffin was magic. As Lexa watched Clarke coo the puppy in her arms, she wanted badly to just kiss the blonde. The only things stopping her were Octavia, who was still frozen and unbothered by the horde of adorable puppies crowding her feet, and her own reservation at making whatever this was between them more than that before she could pull herself together.

The last thing she wanted was to subject Clarke to yet another bout of panic attack – not if she could help it.

"Ah, so this is the infamous Clarke Griffin."

She stiffened where she was, recognizing that voice immediately and definitely recognizing the look that dawned on Clarke's expression as she saw their new companion. Behind the blonde, Octavia let out a menial squeak that resembled a mouse and a drowning dog at the same time, straighter than Lexa could think possible – she wasn't certain if she herself managed to be this straight in posture back when she was still in uniform.

Lexa closed her eyes and released a long sigh. Of course, fate would choose to play with her this way.

"Lexa." Clarke's hiss made her open her eyes again; she refused to turn around unless properly prompted. The doctor looked half freaked out and half uncertain, the puppy in her arms long forgotten as it squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. "Lexa, what do I do?"

The princess decided there wasn't a point to her cap anyway, so she pulled it off as a vain effort to relieve the stress gathering at the back of her head and turned around to face their intruder, who looked all sorts of smug and unapologetic at his rude intrusion. "Lincoln," she greeted, trying to convey her promise to strangle him in his sleep later tonight.

Lincoln hummed, flicked Clarke a glance, and smirked wider. "Anya's going to have a field day."

"I promise to not smother you with your pillow tonight if you don't tell Anya – or anyone else – about today."

Clarke gasped behind her, joined by Octavia's subsequent squeak. It was kind of becoming repetitive at this rate.

"That is so unfair. I just want one thing to lord over our dear sister."

Lexa shrugged. On any other day, she'd want the same thing – Anya was too much of a devious human being sometimes, given the way she always managed to acquire information throughout the palace and utilized these information to get the younger siblings to do something or another. Lexa would probably help her brother in devising a plan to get back at their older sister.

But in this situation, her relationship with Clarke was more important. It was still too early, too fresh. There was no way she was losing her privacy with Clarke just like that – because the moment her sister found out anything new, it would be game over. She wanted to keep the doctor as safe from that thunderstorm as long as she was capable. Forever, if that was even possible.

Lincoln groaned, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. "Fine. At least introduce me to her."

Lexa took a step back and smiled at Clarke reassuringly, offering a wink to help. "Lincoln, this is Clarke, a good friend of mine." His eyes twinkled at her choice of words, and she narrowed hers back. She reached down to squeeze Clarke's forearm twice. "Clarke, I'm sure you know my brother, Lincoln."

Clarke laughed nervously and Lexa could see that she was trying her very best to not act out as she did back in Libya. Shame, really, because Lexa had found that really cute. The blonde clasped onto Lincoln's ready hand and shook it.

"Um, hi, yes, I'm – I'm Clarke." She blinked a couple of times before letting go of the man's hand and gesturing behind her.

"Pleasure," Lincoln replied with a charming smile, one of his many talents. Lexa could never do that. "I have heard absolutely nothing about you, except your name and that you're the doctor who saved Lexa's life."

Clarke raised her brows, threw Lexa look that was much too swift for proper interpretation, and turned back to the prince. "So how am I infamous then?"

"This is the first time we've ever heard of Lexa meeting a girl in a long time. She's always been a little closed off, as I'm sure you know."

"Right." At that, Clarke had become significantly confident, as if she had just found ammunition. "Yes, I definitely know that."

Lexa was going to regret this immensely, she realized, as she watched the conspiratorial look manifest behind her closest people's eyes. Suddenly, she wanted to squeak like Octavia had done since the moment she showed up.

* * *

"This is –"

"I don't know whether it's a curse or a blessing."

"Can I say both?"

There was a long pause between them. And then Lexa hummed skeptically, tilting her head as she watched whatever it was happening in front of her. "Are you sure, though?"

"Guess we'd have to wait and find out."

"I'm not even sure I want that."

After the incredibly odd introduction between the girl she felt like kissing all the time and her brother and the best friend of the girl she felt like kissing all the time, the five of them – including Gustus – had somehow managed to end up a secluded spot at a nearby beach, where it would only be them and the two puppies that Lexa was pretty sure they kidnapped from the shelter, though Octavia assured them that she'd already told the owner that they'd return the little boys at the end of the day.

Apparently, her brother ran the shelter. The princess wasn't certain she would ever trust someone who couldn't even be there to account for the dogs to properly swim a shelter.

But who was she to judge anyway? The puppies were adorable – so adorable that Lexa was actually considering adopting one. And to think that she had only made her way to the shelter because Gustus had come up with the ridiculous idea of seeing Clarke right after therapy. Look where that brought her – an awkward and much-too-early introduction between Lincoln and Clarke.

Which brought her to the other not-so-adorable thing. As soon as Gustus had driven up to this side of the beach and dropped them off, Lexa and Clarke had immediately made themselves comfortable on a random tree tswimk with a puppy, while Lincoln and Octavia had galloped off to the shore with the other.

It was odd. She wasn't certain she liked it – not yet – and obviously, Clarke felt the same. Her brother and Clarke's best friend had just been trampling about the beach like a couple of long lost lovers as they tried to make sure the puppy didn't drown. And there was a moment that Lexa was jealous of her brother – of how easy it was for him to just…be so carefree with a woman he obviously had taken a liking with, of how comfortable he was without having to worry about stupid attacks or memories or dead soldiers calling his name.

She understood that it was a selfish thought, and once upon a time, she would have felt guilty for being selfish. But Niylah had taught her that she was allowed these emotions as long as she acknowledged the _whys_ behind these thoughts. Self-awareness was the first step.

"So why did you come and see me?" Clarke asked.

"Because Gus said so."

Clarke hummed with an amused look on her face as she narrowed her eyes at Lexa teasingly. "And you expect me to believe that you just follow your bodyguard's instructions everywhere you go?" The blonde turned a little to the left to locate said bodyguard standing several yards away to watch over both the prince and the princess. "You know, if you follow instructions that easily, I'm sure you would have been a much easier charge than Gustus currently finds you."

Surprisingly enough, the usually silent man released a snort loud enough for them both to hear, whipping both of their attention to him in an instant second. The bswimette gaped at him in betrayal, while the blonde gaped at him for having even made that noise at all.

Gustus noticed Lexa's expression and offered a simple shrug. "She's not wrong."

"I think he _actually_ likes me."

Lexa whipped around and swerved back slightly, completely caught off guard by the sudden close proximity of Clarke's voice, followed by the realization the woman actually almost had her chin on Lexa's shoulder. She blinked a few times and breathed deeply to get her heart back in order, hoping that Clarke wouldn't mistake her reaction for something else, or better yet, didn't actually notice her reaction.

But judging by the way the blonde's face pinched with slight hurt and guilt, Clarke had definitely seen her reaction and definitely mistook it for something else.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…" Clarke drifted off, shrinking a little back and returning to stroking the puppy.

The bswimette sighed aloud, throwing Gustus a dirty look, before she tried to find the words that wouldn't reveal too much. She stared down at the puppy and watched it doze in the crook of Clarke's elbow, unable to help but smile at the scene.

"No, it's…uh…" She took a deep breath and removed her gaze from the puppy to Clarke. "Things always get a little weird whenever I leave Niylah's office."

She waited for the inevitable as it dawned on Clarke what she had just said. The blonde shifted a little on the tree tswimk and tilted her head, a clear look of understanding replacing the guilt. Instead of responding verbally, she only nodded a little as a prompt for the princess to go on.

"I mean, she's good. You're right to recommend her. I do feel…easier after I see her. But things are…" She licked her lips and moved to shove her hands in her jacket pockets. "It's the _right after_ that's weird, you know. Like I've just told this very professional looking woman whom I suspect you have a history with about things in my life that I've never told anyone. And everything floats up to the surface. And I leave the office and I'm not sure how to deal with this floating… _things_." Lexa blinked rapidly after having expended all _that_. She refused to look at Clarke – well, more like she wasn't brave enough yet. "So Gus usually gives me suggestions as to what I can do to…deal with this floating things until they're no longer floating. And they usually work, you know. Today, he suggested that I come see you, so I came to see you," she concluded, swallowed deeply, and looked at Clarke.

"And how do you feel?"

Lexa had to fight a laugh. Of course, that would be Clarke's question – this was why Lexa adored the woman. "Not as floaty," she answered truthfully.

A hum escaped from the blonde's throat, satisfied and a little smug. Plus, it was hard to miss the contentment in Clarke's sparkling blue eyes at the thought. Yeah, Gus rarely ever had bad ideas.

"Well, I like seeing you not as floaty."

"I like not being floaty."

Lexa reached out to take the puppy, rather certain that she could handle a puppy. And to her delight, the thing woke up excitedly at her hands and didn't even hesitate to paw its way up her chest to lick her face vigorously, soon covering her skin in slobber. She didn't mind.

Once she had lowered to puppy to her lap, Clarke was staring at her with a small smile on her face, admiration and adoring at once.

"What?" Lexa asked self-consciously.

There was a moment where the doctor opened her mouth, very prepared to say whatever it was on her mind. Except she hesitated, eyed Lexa for another second, and closed her mouth as she turned towards Lincoln and Octavia. Lexa waited, but when Clarke was quiet a little too long, she opened her mouth to prompt Clarke to just spit it out, only to stop when the other woman looked back at her.

"Just so you know," the blonde began, hesitantly reaching out lace one hand with Lexa's – the bswimette wondered if Clarke could feel her pulse quicken under her skin – "my history with Niylah…is just that. History. And it will stay that way."

Lexa blinked at the admission – it sounded layered to her, but Lexa had never been good at deciphering hidden messages. Her brows furrowed slightly and her free hand stopped stroking the puppy's hair as she stared at Clarke stare at her.

"You – you don't have to explain anything to me, Clarke."

With a tiny shrug, Clarke moved closer to her until the sides of their thighs touched on the tree tswimk. She squeezed Lexa's hand once, twice, and said, "I know. I just want you to know."

* * *

The rainy Thursday had, thankfully, been just that. At exactly five in the morning, Lexa got out of bed after a rare restful sleep – she suspected it had something to do with having spent a whole afternoon with a certain pretty blonde doctor.

Not allowing that thought to delay her, the youngest Polis princess changed into her swimsuit and headed out to the pool, stretching her limbs and joints as she stood by the edge. She had just finished stretching her hamstring when someone showed up next to her – so unfamiliar an occurrence that Lexa had to remind herself that there were so many guards around her that there was no way this person could assassinate her in close distance.

She stood up straight to find Lincoln in his swimming trunks with his arms stretched overhead. She rolled her eyes and extended her arm to flick his forehead, eliciting an exaggerated yelp.

"Don't sneak up on veterans," she told him, shaking her head in disapproval.

"Sorry," he muttered sheepishly. "Can I join you?"

She tilted at him, his features further darkened under the sky that was hanging between dawn and night. She couldn't see him clearly, but if she could, he'd be carrying an expectant look – one that hid his eagerness to be with his younger sister. Briefly, she wondered what he and Clarke had talked about during the short time they shared together yesterday when Lexa had to go to the bathroom.

"Sure."

"I like Clarke, by the way."

She couldn't help but smile, because as much as she wanted to hide Clarke away from everyone else a little longer, her older brother's approval was still nice. She hummed in response and made to dunk into the pool unceremoniously.

"Keep up, loser!"

While Lexa Woods had been used to being a lonely person, used to shit talking with comrades, unclear as to how to navigate with her family currently, she had to admit: swimming with her big brother before dawn broke was nice. She wouldn't mind doing it again.

* * *

 **i didn't want to just gloss over lexa's ptsd just because she's seeing a therapist now, but i'm also not sure if i'm writing this right. i don't want to misinterpret anything, given that i have no experience with ptsd whatsoever, so if i've made any mistake, please do tell me so i can improve myself in the future.**

 **also, lincoln is that quiet big brother who doesn't say shit but really loves lexa in a quiet way and really enjoys octavia's company in that quiet way of his and you can tear this headcanon out of my cold dead hands.**


	9. audi, vide, tace

**listen, today has been so wild i can't even word it. i woke up and i choked on my own saliva when i saw eliza's tweet, and i legitimately thought it was a hack until i saw bob and then rottenbart's tweets. i'm like - it's all just so funny to me and i'm so glad i stan adc more than i stan eliza taylor. cw is so wild - it's like an orgy network wow i can't even kjfhekijewoj**

 **but anyway, whatever the fuck is going on with that show and that network, my clexa ass stays. i was actually even thinking of postponing the posting of this chapter until a couple of weeks later, but i figure y'all probably need a little relief from that in the form of clexa fics - and i am here to oblige.**

 **now, read, ponder, and forget about the fact that they actually got married holy fucking shit cw is just filled with cheaters huh what the fuck aren't we glad alycia got out before the contagion got to her omfg**

* * *

"I can't."

She narrowed her eyes. "Yes, you can."

"No, I can't," Marcus said a little regrettably, but regret wasn't going to do shit in this situation. "Clarke, I understand, and I apologize. But I _can't_."

"Marcus, he almost killed a patient."

"I will keep his name off the board from now on. He will only perform routine check-ups and nothing that requires him in the OR."

Gaping at the Chief of Surgery, Clarke couldn't quite believe that she had heard those words right. Just yesterday, she had been having a pretty good time. A _very_ good time. One of the best times she had had in her entire life, if she was to be honest.

She couldn't help but felt some of her anger subside when she remembered how…utterly relaxed Lexa had been in her presence, unguarded and completely enamored with the puppies they had brought out to the beach. There was even a brief moment when she wanted to just give up all her decorum and lean forward to kiss the princess – a very brief moment that was interjected by the rationality that Lexa was definitely not ready for that kind of advancement yet.

Then Clarke had come back to work today, ready to do the first thing she had promised Finn Collins she'd do that night. She marched into Marcus Kane's office, calmly explained to him all that had happened, and demanded that proper punishment ought to be carried out, like, say, revoking his license as a medical practitioner and never let him anywhere near a hospital again.

"Did you hear what I said?" she asked, feeling the fire rise in her.

Marcus sighed and took off his glasses, as if this was hurting him. "Clarke, this is a complicated –"

"There is nothing complicated about the fact that Dr. Finn Collins almost killed a woman in the OR because he couldn't concentrate well enough. He is a disaster on two legs. He _will_ end up killing someone in the future."

"Let's not be dramatic."

She raised her brows, daring him to say something more to bolster that claim. Smart enough as he was, Marcus knew to shut up.

"He is Dante Wallace's nephew."

Ah, Clarke got it now.

The Wallace family was, by no means, a big name in the medical industry. A business clan, through and through – development, mergers, food and beverages; you name it, they probably had their hands in it. If Clarke remembered correctly, the son, Cage Wallace, was involved in a hit-and-run that took a pregnant woman's life, but he got away with a slap on the hand in the form of community service and major compensation to the family. They were repulsive people.

They weren't much invested in the medical industry – not yet, at least – but the Wallace family was a big benefactor of Silver Hill. They sponsored medical equipment. Catered to parties. Funded the renovations. Introduced family members to accept treatment here.

Clarke had never understood why; she supposed she did now. And much as she hated it, she understood why Marcus was so reluctant. Still, "And?"

Marcus' brows twitched in slight irritation. "If I get rid of Collins now, this hospital will lose its biggest benefactor. We won't be able to run at all, let alone treat patients." Hearing those words come out of his mouth in that clipped accent of his only served to irritate her more. "I don't like it, but this hospital needs the money."

"That's bullshit and you know it."

"Excuse me?"

She shook her head and gave herself some time to look around the huge office that Marcus was set up in. She absorbed the classy décor and the expensive furniture, the comfortable carpet and the nice as hell on-call room he had in the corner.

Lifting her hand, she absentmindedly waved it around the room. "The money from the Wallaces gave you this, huh?"

"Clarke –"

"I came to Silver Hill because I didn't want to work with my mother."

"Now –"

"Guess I forgot that you two are one and the same. That's why you're trying to sleep with her, right?"

" _Dr. Griffin_ ," he pronounced sternly, and Clarke had never seen Marcus so angry before, positively livid and looking like he was on the brink of leaping to his feet and yelling at her. Good. "I advise you to what you say next very carefully."

She clenched her jaw and licked her lower lip, standing up herself. "And _I_ –" she adjusted the lapels of her coat and eyed him coldly "– advise you to watch Finn Collins carefully. If you don't do something about it, I _assure_ you he _is_ going to kill somebody eventually. And when that happens, not even all of the Wallaces' bullshit money can save you."

Before Marcus could chastise her for her less than graceful language, Clarke marched out of his office and to the nurse's station. Thankfully, her credentials were enough to access the logs for other doctors' current patients. If Marcus wasn't going to do something about it, the least she could do was make sure that Finn didn't another high-risk patient.

* * *

At the end of her shift, she had pretty much taken over two-thirds of Finn's patients, filling up her repertoire almost to the brim, and she could feel herself just about ready to collapse when the clock finally struck six in the morning and released her from her shift.

She had read through all of the notes that the interns had made, barely any from Finn Collins himself, and wondered _how_ the fuck had this _teaching_ hospital managed to hire such an incompetent doctor. The Wallaces may be powerful, but they _couldn't_ be this powerful – there had to be some form of checks and balances that are actually ethical at the top. For a long moment, Clarke had to wonder if she made the right decision to join this hospital at all.

She made a mental note to call Niylah as she walked out of the hospital. She was just about to turn left where it would lead her to the park when a hand roughly grabbed her arm and swung her around, confronting her with a livid Finn Collins.

Oh goodie.

"What the hell, Clarke?" he hissed, almost right up to her face.

She took one look into his mouth and grimaced. "I may not be a dentist, Finn, but I think you should visit one."

" _All of my patients_?"

"You still have some rectal issues and bowel problems left on your list."

"Clarke."

"You're lucky you even still have a _job_ , Finn," she hissed right back at him, tired of his incessant habit of complaining and inability to see his own faults. "You're lucky that you have Dante Wallace backing you," she added, quieter this time, relishing in his surprised blink. She smirked. "What? You think I wouldn't find out?"

He clenched his jaw, eyes growing darker. "I swear to god –"

"Is there a problem here?"

They spun around back up the way that led back to the hospital to see Octavia and Lincoln there, looking simultaneously confused and unhappy at they were looking at. Clarke had to bite back her surprise from seeing her best friend and the literal _prince_ standing outside the hospital she was working at, because there was something more important that she was dealing with. She took the chance to step back from Finn and cleared her throat.

"No, Finn was just heading back to work." At that, she shot the man a pointed look. "Isn't he?"

Finn was still gaping at the fact that he was looking at the _prince_ in the flesh. She wouldn't really blame him. Not even a week ago, he met the second princess of the country in the garden.

People needed time to process that kind of thing. She knew she inhaled two tubs of vanilla ice-cream after Lexa had left Libya six months ago to even accept that she had actually met the princess. Still, he could inhale his ice-cream at some other time. Now, she needed him to get the hell away from her face before she actually revealed his secrets to the actual prince.

There were things to be done. Procedures to go through. Niylah to call. But telling members of the monarchy was definitely the very last resort to handle this whole mess.

Fortunately, Finn only nodded meekly and even _bowed_ at Lincoln for like five seconds. Clarke and Octavia's eyes met as Lincoln stared at Finn with increasing horror, and they had to keep their cool to not burst out laughing at the sight. Then the failing doctor stood up straight, cleared his throat, shot the blonde a desperate look, and scurried back the way he had just come, leaving the three of them standing by the sidewalk.

As soon as Finn was out of sight, Clarke sobered up immediately. "Your Highness –"

"Lincoln," he corrected, though he still looked confused. "I am Lincoln to my sister's…friends."

She gulped, even blushed a little, as she understood the meaning behind his hesitation. "Lincoln," she breathed, shooting a short glance at Octavia, "please don't tell Lexa about what you just saw."

If there was anything that Clarke had learned about their last encounter near the Avicenna statue, it was that Lexa did not take too kindly to threats. And it wasn't that Clarke wanted to brag about it, but she definitely did not mistake the undercurrent that had been building between her and the princess since the moment Clarke had chosen to stay as requested.

So Clarke was pretty sure that if Lexa heard about this, this entire hospital would have a storm coming. And she didn't want that. Despite the power play, she _liked_ it here – the people, the patients, the things she got to do.

"Who was that?"

"Finn," Octavia offered.

"Nobody," Clarke replied at the same time. The two best friends shared a long look – one of desperation and another of consternation. She sucked in a deep breath and calmed her mind that had spiraled at the wild turn this whole thing had taken, facing Lincoln again. "That was no one. It was nothing. I can handle it myself. Lexa's got a lot on her plate. There's no need for her to worry about more."

"We both know she'll always care about you."

"Exactly," she admitted and extended a hand in his direction like he had just proven her point. "Please."

Lincoln was certainly displeased with her request. If they were closer, he would probably ignore her, even. But they weren't. They had literally just met like two days ago. Granted, surrounded by puppies, and puppies were known to be great bonding agents, but _two days ago_. They met once because they both cared about Lexa, and now, he was outside her hospital with her _best friend_.

The prince nodded in reluctant acquiescence.

She smiled widely and stuck her hands together in front of her chest in thankful gesture. "Thank you." She licked her lips and glanced oddly at Octavia, who at least had the decency to look sheepish. "Now, I just finished a very long shift and I'd very much like to go home. It's, uh, nice to see you again…Lincoln."

"We're talking about this later," Octavia shot at her as she took retreating steps down the sidewalk.

"Oh, we're not," Clarke remarked with a smirk.

If she had her way, Finn would be the last thing they'd be talking about when the three of them finally got together.

* * *

The sun had just gone halfway down from its midpoint above their heads when she woke up for a new day. Clarke lazed around in bed for awhile, hoping that it would help in getting all the uncomfortable kinks out and delay having to think about the latest dilemma she was forced to take on at the hospital.

Once she had convinced herself there was no more escaping and the music was becoming increasingly loud in her head, she pulled herself out of bed and started the coffee machine in the kitchen as she scrolled down her contact list to find her once-upon-a-bedmate's.

She didn't wait for any greeting when the call was finally picked up, launching immediately into, "Hypothetically, you have explicit knowledge of a medical practitioner's wrongful behavior and, honestly, unethical misdemeanor, what do you have to do about it?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the call, and then she heard Niylah whispering inaudibly and some shuffling of papers and the muffled click of the door. "I would have thought you would have run out of hypotheticals after getting your board certification."

Clarke closed her eyes with a huff, mumbling gibberish gratitude when the coffee had finished percolating and going ahead to pour herself a fresh cup of piping hot black caffeine. She pinned the phone between her ear and shoulder as her hands began to toss in sugar and creamer because she wasn't a monster.

"Trust me, me too," she grumbled as she started stirring the coffee.

"Do I want to know?"

"It's hypothetical."

"Are you in trouble?"

"Hypothetical, Niylah."

"You remember that you're literally best friends with a princess, right?"

She abandoned the spoon to lift a finger in the air, even though Niylah wouldn't be able to see it, but she was still trying to make her points. "One: she's not my best friend." Best friends were Raven and Octavia, occasionally even Niylah and Bellamy. Lexa was not her best friend; she was decidedly more – not that Clarke would tell anyone that. Then she lift another finger. "Two: it's hypothetical."

Niylah sighed loudly, because they had known each other since that certain sorority party in junior year and she knew Clarke _very well_. "The Council would consider you to be an accomplice by accessory," Niylah said. "It works the same for all doctors, including mental health specialists."

Clarke bit her lower lip and hummed. "Okay, so hypothetically, I tried to report to the Chief of Surgery, but they refuse –"

"You mean he."

" _They_ ," Clarke emphasized, closing her eyes and quietly decrying Niylah's intelligence, "refuse to do anything about it, because funding plays a role."

Niylah took some time to contemplate the situation that Clarke had just laid out for her. The doctor had been using hypotheticals because there was no way she would put Niylah in the position where she'd have to choose between ethics and her friend.

But the two of them knew fully well that this was long past hypothetical – still, Clarke chose to stick to it, if only to save her friend from dipping a whole foot into it.

The psychiatrist heaved an audible sigh over the phone and cleared her throat. "Clarke, _hypothetically_ , based on everything you had just told me, you _need_ to go to the Council. They can try to cover up as much as possible – money is very useful, I know that very well. But paper can't hold the fire for long, and sooner or later, _someone_ will find out, and you'll be dragged into it. And you _will_ lose your license."

Clarke kept her eyes closed, squeezing them shut tighter, as she contemplated a future as anything other than a doctor.

"Thanks, Niylah."

"Clarke," the psychiatrist said with a warning tone in her voice.

Clarke heaved a sigh and finally opened her eyes as she resumed stirring the coffee. "I'll be fine."

"I swear to hypothetical god that I will hypothetically beat you up if you hypothetically get fired. Maybe even hypothetically kill you."

Unable to help herself, the doctor burst into peals of laughter. When she calmed down, she said, "I think you're taking hypotheticals a little too far."

"You started it," Niylah deadpanned. "Take care of yourself, Griffin."

Once they had hung up, Clarke leaned back against the counter and started sipping on some sweet, wonderful, _awakening_ coffee. Her mind began to resume its tour to a future without her boards certification, without the job of being a doctor.

Well, she could draw, she supposed, but it had been quite some time since she actually picked up a pen and do something other than random doodles.

But while drawing could be cathartic and much more calming than being a doctor, she hated the idea of losing that _thrill_ that came with being a doctor, especially a trauma surgeon. Much as she hated to say it, Clarke had grown addicted to it. To the rush of new patients and new dilemmas and new complications. It got her heart pumping and her mind racing like nothing else. And she _loved_ it.

* * *

Five hours had gone past since she sat herself down in front of her laptop and made herself draft the email that could save her career and ruin another's. Five hours, and she had only managed to come up with the words 'to whom it may concern'.

No one ever said she was a proficient writer. This was why she was a doctor. Her chicken scratch penmanship and barely passing grades during English class should be telling enough.

She was still staring at the blinker and cursing herself for not paying attention to Mrs. Hummings during a letter writing class in third grade, when her phone buzzed next to the third empty cup of coffee that she had drained today. No sleep was being had tonight, which wouldn't do well with her shift tomorrow evening, but fuck that.

Without looking at the caller ID, she picked it up and said, maybe a little too harshly, "What?"

"Um, are you okay?"

It took awhile, but there was no way Clarke wouldn't recognize that voice. "Oh, Lexa, hey!" she greeted, her harsh tone immediately shifting into one of surprise and gladness.

"Hi. Are you okay?"

Clarke blinked. "Yeah, I'm…" She drifted off, finding herself hitting a little roadblock. Was it considered treason to lie to the princess even though it didn't really concern the princess? Plus, Clarke didn't really want to lie to Lexa. "It's been a confusing day," she decided. "Why do you ask?"

"I just – I don't know how to explain it, but I've been feeling weird all day, and somehow I kind of thought it has to do with you." Without having to see the princess in the flesh, Clarke knew that Lexa was feeling hesitant. Doubtful. Uncertain. "Sorry if I'm overstepping, though."

"No, no!" Clarke quickly corrected her.

Honestly, she didn't know what to feel at the idea of Lexa being able to feel that something weird was going on all the way over at the palace. If Clarke was a more superstitious person, she would have just thought of things like soulmates or connections. But Clarke was scientific person – she was a doctor, all about facts and truths and chemistry.

This was no science. This was just…romantic.

She smiled and flicked herself in the forehead lightly for even daring to think it. "Thank you for calling. I am okay."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Good."

"Go –"

Clarke shook her head, looking up at the ceiling. Would she ever be a normal person when she was talking to Lexa? Probably not.

Just two days ago, she had definitely revealed to Lexa that she and Niylah used to sleep with each other, even though it had been a plan to keep it under wraps forever. She was being ridiculous – Alexandria Woods was driving her crazy, and Clarke was pretty sure she wanted to keep being crazy.

"How are _you_?"

"Oh, I'm – I'm – I'm good. Yeah, it's uh – I mean, yeah, I'm okay too," Lexa stuttered.

Clarke could only think that she was adorable. And kind of sad. Lexa had, obviously, been taken aback by the blonde's turning the question round back to her, not expecting to be asked of her own state of mind.

And Clarke had to wonder how often was Lexa ever asked how she was without any motives other than to truly know _how she was_. She wanted to know if the princess had anyone else who genuinely wanted her to be as happy and comfortable as possible with no ulterior motives, apart from her family and giant of a bodyguard. Clarke wanted to offer herself up as all of those things, just so Lexa knew that she had other people too.

"Why confusing?"

"Huh?"

"You said it's been a confusing day," Lexa remarked.

"Oh, I –" Clarke reached up to scratch at her temple as she considered her words and what she could tell Lexa without giving everything up. "It's just…work," she mumbled, adding on a sigh. It wasn't just work – it was ethics and the hospital and her career and the corporate reality that had gripped onto even the best country that she could think of. But it wasn't like she could tell Lexa those things. "I'm finding it hard to make a decision that shouldn't be hard."

Lexa hummed, like she knew something about it. Sometimes, Clarke forgot that the princess was actually a veteran. Someone who had been to an actual battlefield, killed people, nearly lost a leg in the name of the country her father ruled, and had to now use a cane to compensate for said damaged leg. Lexa definitely knew about making difficult choices than Clarke, that was for sure.

On any other day, if Lexa was any other person, Clarke would try to pick her brain and see what she could do.

But this was not any other day and Lexa was not any other person. Lexa Woods was daughter of King Richmond the Third. They pretty much set the law for the running of the country, including the healthcare services that were provided in this country, which did not exclude Silver Hill. It was probably even worse that Silver Hill was a _teaching_ hospital.

This was her own battle to fight, blood or no blood. Plus, Clarke wasn't lying when she told Lincoln that she didn't want to add on to his sister's already very full plate.

"Hey, so I'm suddenly craving some Big Mac," Lexa suddenly said.

The blonde blinked at the sudden change of topic. "Um, okay?"

"You wanna share one with me?"

Another blink. And then a disbelieving laughter escaped her throat. This was the oddest and yet most relieving thing to happen to her. This whole day, Clarke had been feeling so heavy and so at odds with herself and the world, not even knowing that she secretly wanted something to come and take her mind off it.

Not even knowing that she wanted that something in the form of Lexa's voice in her ear, calming and soothing and oh so velvety.

"I'll be right there."

* * *

 **the only marriage i care about is "i swear fealty to you clarke kom skaikru i vow to treat your needs as my own and your people as my people"**

 **holy fucking shit i cannot even lmaooooooooo i still haven't stopped laughing i'm laughing while writing this author's note TODAY HAS BEEN WILD GOOD FUCKING BYE**


	10. ceteris paribus

**y'all are gonna like this**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

At the slightest whiff of nicotine, she whirled around and didn't even hesitate to reach out and tug the cigarette from Gustus' mouth, tossing it on the ground and stamping it out with her sneaker. When he glared at her halfheartedly, she just raised a brow, practically daring him to do something to her for preventing him from being one stick closer to dying.

"Does Penelope really condone this at home?" When he remained quiet, she hummed. "Maybe I'll have a conversation with her. Talk to her about how it's not healthy that she's allowing her husband to –"

"She doesn't know," he finally grunted, cutting her off with an exasperated tone.

"Better. I'll just tell her about her husband who's been chain-smoking behind her back."

"I haven't been chain-smoking," he protested with affront.

She narrowed her eyes, lifted her foot, and pointed down at the wilted cigarette. "I'm pretty sure that's from your third pack today."

"It's –"

He huffed and shifted uncomfortably. She hid her smirk at that. Gustus was known for his stoicism and overprotectiveness – people had even speculated that he was Terminator in real life, unmovable but fiercely defensive over his ward, which was Lexa.

She loved that she was the only one who could do this to him. Get him to speak. Get him to simply react. Lexa was certain that the only other person who could do this was her father, and that was only because Gustus had been Richmond's bodyguard before he was Lexa's.

She pointed a finger at his face, almost poking into his left nostril. "One pack a day, or I'm gonna tell your wife."

He narrowed his eyes at her before pushing her hand away from his face. "You are a blabbermouth," he complained as they began meandering down the path that led to the usual park that she went to.

"Consider it payback for telling my father about my former nightly habits," she replied easily and threw him a wink when he shot her a glare.

They had reached the benches and went on autopilot as they took seats on their respective benches. Yards away from him, she could see his fingers twitching in a habit to take out the pack of cigarettes in his jacket.

She made sure to keep staring at him, daring him to do it. She kind of wanted him to do it, because she'd been thinking of a way to pay him back for blabbering off to her father in the first place. Plus, she wanted him to be healthy, and he was awfully subservient to his wife, for some reason.

"Jesus, are you kidding me?"

She snapped her head around to find Clarke standing a few yards away from the both of them, half glaring and half gaping at her. Lexa blinked, suddenly uncertain as to how to react to this unwarranted animosity from the blonde. She had sounded so excited on the phone just twenty minutes ago.

And how did Lexa not notice her coming anyway? Christ, she was losing her game and alertness. All in the face of a pretty blonde doctor and the desire to keep teasing her robot of a bodyguard. Speaking of which, she turned back to Gustus, who looked expressionless to just about any stranger, but definitely not Lexa, because she could see the slight uptick of the left corner of his beard and the prominent lines at the corner of his eyes.

Traitor.

Looking back to Clarke, the blonde was still gaping at her, but Lexa was finally catching onto the appreciation in those blue eyes, thanks to the streetlights that had been newly installed just last week.

Ah, she got it now, allowing the flattery to surface in a rare appearance. Then again, she didn't quite get it – due to the suddenness of this McDonald's run, Lexa had opted to head out in her pajamas, which was just a set of T-shirt and a pair of short, along with a grey hoodie. It wasn't the most outstanding of outfits, in her opinion.

Clarke groaned, dramatizing her displeasure by throwing her head back, and headed towards Lexa after offering Gustus a perfunctory nod. "This is ridiculous. Whatever. Where's my Big Mac?" Clarke demanded once she had sat down next to Lexa on the bench. "Also, you're kind of obsessed with this bench."

"What is ridiculous?" Lexa goaded, ignoring Clarke's dig about the bench and gesturing at the McDonald's takeaway bag.

The blonde began to dig into the bag and surfaced with a Big Mac and a big Coke. "Just you and your entirely ridiculous good looking thing going on," she said airily as she unwrapped the food. "And aren't you cold? What were you thinking coming out in shorts?"

"You think I'm good looking?" Lexa asked, humming in thanks when Clarke handed her the other Big Mac in the bag.

Clarke threw her an unimpressed look. "I think we've established that very early on."

"I just wanted to confirm."

"Don't be smug."

"I got you Big Mac and this is how you talk to me," Lexa said as she shook her head. "Don't do good deeds, is what they say."

"Your face simply upsets me," Clarke retorted while munching on bits of the Big Mac. "This whole thing –" she made circles with said Big Mac at Lexa's face "– is absolutely offensive. Should be illegal."

"Careful. Next thing you know, you'll be telling me you want to kiss me." It came back out before Lexa could stop herself. And once it was out, it was out.

Her Big Mac was frozen halfway to her mouth, and she kept her gaze on the ground as she could feel Clarke stiffen next to her at the remark. Shit. Shit. _Shit._ Fuck, she should have kept her mouth shut. There must be something in the air of this park when the sun had set. She just kept saying or doing ridiculous shit, and that was always in Clarke's presence.

"Do you actually want an answer to that?" This time, there was no sign of joking around or humor in Clarke's voice.

When Lexa looked at her again, all the teasing was gone from the blonde's expression, only curiosity and preparedness. For a moment, the princess wondered what it was like to be this brave. She definitely didn't miss the way the blonde's eyes flitting down to her lips for a second and then back to her eyes. It wasn't like Clarke was trying to be subtle about it either.

Her heart stuttered in her chest at the thought of actually kissing Clarke. God only knew how many times she had dreamt about it, including that time she woke up in the morning after a particularly savory one, which caused her to be late to therapy because she spent half an hour getting herself off and then added on to the swimming to expend her reserved energy.

That was a good morning.

Lexa wanted let herself go, restraint be damned, and just do it already. Fulfill her fantasies and take this very odd non-friendship one step further. The both of them were very much aware that they were definitely not _just_ friends.

But she couldn't. She had a problem. She was ill. This illness could be dangerous, from what she had seen amongst her former comrades and the research she had done. Her family was already inevitable subjects to her bouts – she wouldn't subject Clarke to it as well. She refused to be so selfish, despite the blonde's reassurances that she was there to stay.

"You wanna tell me about this decision that shouldn't be hard?" she deflected.

She could feel her resolve breaking a little at the flash of disappointment crossing Clarke's azure irises before it was replaced with acceptance and hesitation. "No, not really." Lexa raised a brow, not quite used to Clarke shutting her off like that, and Clarke must have seen it on her face, because she hurried to add, "It's just – it's kind of complicated and the less people who know, the better. I just don't want to involve…people."

The soldier in Lexa wanted to pursue further, especially when she heard the slight inflection in Clarke's voice that probably didn't mean anything. Except Lexa was smart enough, had handled enough subordinates, somehow knew enough of the doctor's tonal shifts, to know that there was something more. Something that troubled Clarke so much that she didn't want to tell Lexa about it.

She could easily invoke her status as royalty to force Clarke to tell her about it, but she remembered her promise just a little over a month ago, when they saw each other again in this park after six months of being apart. She was Lexa with Clarke, and not the princess. And Lexa, just a girl who was half in love and wanted to be the best friend she could be to the blonde, wasn't going to be one to pressure Clarke into saying anything.

"Alright," she offered with a nod.

If Clarke wanted to talk, she would listen. If not, she would sit here and remind Clarke that she was here. It was that simple.

* * *

 _Lexa (11:49p.m.): Can you wait?_

 _Clarke (11:50p.m.): wait 4 wat?_

 _Lexa (11:50p.m.): To give me an answer if I get better._

 _Clarke (11:58p.m.): lexa, WHEN u get better, im gonna do it rather than just giving u an answer  
Clarke (11:58p.m.): thx for the big mac btw – its the best big mac ive evr had_

 _Lexa (12:02a.m.): Goodnight, doctor._

 _Clarke (12:03a.m.): good night, your highness._

* * *

"Oh, _good god_!"

Lexa covered her eyes with a hand and slammed the door close the other, moving to the side and leaning against the wall as she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. Inside the room, she could muffled giggles and words, the people seemingly unfazed by her intrusion of their…activity. Yeah, it seemed like no matter how much scrubbing she needed, the image would forever be burned into her brain.

Talk about traumatizing.

A few moments later, the occupants of the room finally came out, smug looks on their faces, as if they hadn't just been caught half naked and almost doing the dirty behind an unlocked door. She crossed her arms and made sure that her sister and her fiancé were at the receiving end of her patented glare. Then again, they were so used to her that they wouldn't be fazed in the least.

Anya had the audacity to shrug at her, while Roan just stood behind her sister, following her cue, as he always did in this building. At least he was smart enough for that.

" _My_ study," Lexa bit out.

"Have you seen him?" Anya said and scrunched her nose as she reached behind her to touch Roan's cheek. "I couldn't resist."

Lexa followed Anya's hand and took a long look at her future brother in law. "I'm too gay for this," she whispered and shook her head. "At least have the decency to feel ashamed that you almost had sex on my couch, for the love of god," she chastised and headed back in, eying the couch in disdain. "Now I'm going to burn it. Mom wouldn't be happy."

Anya made a clicking noise with her tongue as the couple followed her in, sitting back on the couch like it was no big deal. She stroked the fabric gently and smirked at the youngest Woods. "I have a feeling that Mom and Dad got frisky on this couch too. After all, you did get it from their previous collection of bedroom set."

"Oh my god!" Lexa yelped, sticking her fingers in her ears and vigorously shaking her head.

Now, she had to shake not only the images of her sister's side boob and Roan's ass from her mind, but also her parents getting down and dirty on that very couch. Ikea – she was going to Ikea tomorrow. Muffled laughter could be heard and she rolled her eyes at the childish couple, removing her fingers from her hears and making a note to wash out her eyes later.

"What do you want?" she asked, beyond unimpressed.

"So remember when I proposed?" Roan pointed out innocently. She narrowed her eyes, nodding in confirmation. "Yeah, your mother just informed us that apparently we have to actually do something about it." Lexa tilted her head. "Like a wedding, a church, the whole shebang."

She raised her brows at him, kind of at a loss, and then slowly averted her gaze to her sister, who was smirking at the brunette and not offering anything else. Right, because Anya loved making things hard for her siblings. "Yes, isn't that…what an engagement is supposed to lead to?" she slowly worded out, uncertain as to whether they were being deliberately obtuse.

"We were thinking elopement," Anya shot out, her canines showing her mischievousness. Lexa rarely saw her sister smile so widely. "Maybe at Floukru. I heard Luna's ordained."

Lexa's eyes widened and she jumped up so quickly that she didn't gauge the position of her bum leg, causing to bump into the desk and the items to rattle so loudly that even the other two occupants of the room were alarmed. She held up a hand at them and steadied herself, wincing a little at the unnecessary ache that arced through her hip.

She took a deep breath and wondered for a minute if she remembered to take her medicine this morning after breakfast. She should probably check her medication box later when she was left alone.

And then she directed her wide eyes at the twosome. "Dad would _kill_ you," she hissed.

"Yeah, Mom said that."

Lexa inhaled sharply. " _You told her_?"

"She ambushed us," Roan intercepted, like _that_ was the worst thing in this conversation.

"Yeah, because you ambushed the nation with your relationship _and_ engagement in one go _five months_ ago, and then it's tumbleweeds since then."

"We were enjoying engagement bliss."

" _Clearly_ ," Lexa snapped, shuddering when she remembered what she had witnessed mere minutes ago.

"Alright, so, apparently, we have to, like, plan our wedding and stuff now," Anya said with a dismissive wave of her hands, like it wasn't a big deal. Like the crown princess getting married wouldn't be an event of probably decade. Like her wedding wouldn't be the biggest occasion this country had seen in almost fifty years. "And I thought I'd get this out of the way."

"Which is?"

"You as my maid of honor."

Lexa's heart jumped a little at the thought. She looked at her sister, more like gaped, actually. And suddenly, the teasing expression had dropped, and in its place, was a tender looking smile and gentle eyes, a little pleading and a little moving, staring back at her. And the brunette almost felt her heart swell to such fullness it might explode.

Unlike her younger sister, Anya did not lack in the friends department. She had friends everywhere, in every state, in almost every country, in every room in this palace. Anya might put out this façade of toughness and unattainable, but in private, she was the most mischievous and would always say the right words to reach the right people. Among them all, Anya's best friend was Echo Lux, her roommate in college.

And yet, Anya didn't ask Echo. Not any of her friends in her wide social circle. Instead, she had chosen to come to Lexa's wing, ruin her precious couch, and ask _her_.

To stop herself from crying, Lexa feigned a frown and leaned against the desk. She refused to cry in front of Roan, no matter how much she liked him. "Wait, are you telling or asking?" she prodded.

And then the tenderness was gone. Because they were sisters, and Anya knew her very well, so well that she understood that this was Lexa's way of accepting and her way of blocking her emotions from showing in front of unfamiliarity. Anya smirked and stood up, pulling her fiancé up with her and heading towards the door.

"Telling. You can't escape this." Lexa had expected her to just walk out like that, but her sister surprised her again by pushing the man out the door and closing it behind her again. Anya pressed back against the door with the same expression from before again, shaking her head at the brunette. "You shouldn't be surprised. You're my sister."

"Yeah, I –" Lexa took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling for a long while as she tried to stave off her emotions. For fuck's sake, she was supposed to be a _soldier_. "I thought after my behavior recently –"

"That doesn't make you my sister any less," Anya retorted, approaching Lexa and placing her hands on the younger woman's forearms. "You're…a little cracked and leaking some sane juice, I won't deny that." Lexa heaved a wet laughter at that. "But you're still my sister. And I love you. And there's no one else I'd want on that altar with me than you, do you understand?"

Lexa nodded and didn't even hesitate to make the first move this time as she leaned forward and engaged Anya in a strong embrace, eliciting a surprised yelp. They hugged for a long time, Anya letting Lexa take the reins this time.

When they finally let go of each other, both couldn't keep their eyes from the couch. Lexa didn't miss out on the opportunity to reach out and slap her sister's arm.

"You're telling Mom that I'm burning that couch."

"What? No!"

"Yes, or I'm telling Dad about your elopement plans."

"Lexa, dear sister, the army has changed you."

* * *

One of the things that Niylah had advised her to do more often to mend her relationship with her family was to start joining them for breakfast, rather than having her own breakfast extra early and retreating to her study just as everyone else was staring to wake up. Apparently, breakfast was the most important meal of the day, and for the royal family, breakfast was probably the only moment for the day where the conversations wouldn't involved much, if any, of work or duties.

Lexa had remembered to point out to them that she wanted no part in the planning of the wedding. If it were up to her, she'd just invite the important people and make sure the main couple of the day would show up at the church with their rings. She would do away with the carriage and the broadcast and the whole ridiculousness of planning a wedding. She had often thought that weddings were only for the people watching rather than the two people actually getting married.

And then, after breakfast, she excused herself and went down to her study, listening to her secretary tell her about the calls and emails she had gotten and working together to organize meetings for the week to come.

"And Service Day is next Friday," Rachel sheepishly offered once they were inside her office.

Lexa groaned at the reminder. "Okay."

"Mr. Jaha called yesterday when you were out of office."

The princess stilled in her seat, the letter opener frozen halfway in the air – if they didn't know better, it would almost seem like she wanted to stab her secretary. She eyed the younger woman warily and asked, "Why?"

"Um," Rachel drifted off and began to look more pensive, if that was even possible. Telling this to Lexa was obviously the last thing she wanted to do. Otherwise, she wouldn't have made it the last item on her list. "He wanted you to give a speech. On Service Day. It'll be broadcasted to our soldiers overseas. He thought it would raise morale and –"

"Absolutely not," Lexa cut her off sharply and curtly, not even caring that the woman jumped a little. "You can tell Mr. Jaha that I will not be involved in his greed or allow him to turn me into a capitalistic commodity on a day that is supposed to _respect_ and _be grateful_ to our soldiers within and without this country." With a vicious snap, the opener had sliced open the flap of the first letter rather ungracefully. She pulled the paper out, paused, and added, "Verbatim."

Rachel nodded and scuttled out as quickly as she could.

Lexa wouldn't claim to know that she knew all the ins and outs of the Parliament – given that she was fourth in line for the throne, and probably would be demoted when Anya and Roan finally decided to reproduce, she didn't think it was necessary for her to be entirely familiar with the way the government worked. But she had taken a special interest in women's initiatives, military issues, and veterans' affairs.

And after her honorary discharge, she had gotten even more involved with the Veterans' Agency and Defense Department in order to dispatch her program smoothly. That consequently meant increased interactions with the heads of both organizations. While she liked Callie Cartwig of the Veterans' Agency just fine, she found herself very much at disdain with Thelonious Jaha of the Defense Department.

It was obvious from their first meeting that he was just the man behind the desk and had only two years of experience on tour before he himself was honorably discharged. They called it a heart condition; she would like to call it cowardice. Certainly, national security was the top of his concerns, but he was also a man who sought profits and victory with no regard to the soldiers that were deployed on his command. He wanted to win more than he cared about the welfare of the men and women who were driving the tanks and shooting the rifles.

And since that first meeting, she had decided that talking to him would not do anything to help her initiative, which was why she decided to move her target to his deputy, who was much more amicable and understanding. Becca Franco also served to be the buffer between her and Jaha, which was just the way she liked it. Plus, Lexa had a feeling that Jaha was even halfway as supportive of the program she had initiated with regards to the veterans was because she was the princess – otherwise, he wouldn't have been so generous with the current funding towards the program.

Regardless, there was no way she would allow Jaha to use her as a mouthpiece to further his agenda. The solders deserved better than that. They didn't need a mouthpiece. They didn't need her to show up on television to boost their morale. When a soldier was out there, they didn't care about their King's daughter on a tiny screen telling them how grateful she was.

They cared about their mission and their goals. They cared about surviving the desert and the polluted water. They cared about sneaking in just a little bit of smile, if only to ensure that their sanity stayed intact enough for them to go home to their families. They cared about going home.

* * *

"While I sympathize," Niylah started as she tapped the butt of her red pen on the glass top of her desk to a random rhythm, "you didn't exactly come back in perfect shape yourself."

Lexa watched as the pen tap and tap and tap – for a moment, she was reminded of the click of cartridges in rifles. She considered Niylah's observation and thought back to the events that had transpired since she came home in a chopper and woke up in an executive suite in a hospital. She looked at the cane that was propped against her chair and thought how much her family had to spend to even afford her the opportunity of using the cane and keeping her leg.

"I still came back in better condition than most."

"Do you think that's true?" Niylah immediately threw back, raising her brows. "Because of your father, we have pretty ideal healthcare plans and insurance policies. Yes, maybe post-deployment treatment is lacking, but I'm sure you and your father are working together to better it." Lexa nodded. "Some soldiers come back with all their limbs intact and their families hold. Some don't. That's just the way it is in military. Meanwhile, _you_ come back with a bum leg and a case of PTSD."

"I'm still the princess. I get better treatment than most. I live in a fucking palace, for the love of god."

"But, at the end of the day, you're _still_ human, are you not?" Niylah pointed out, patient as ever. "Here's something I really don't like about the rhetoric that people come to my office with, which is that you think you're better than a lot of people and that somehow makes you undeserving of _feeling_ the pain you are in. You can't put your problems on a playing field. Yes, you are the princess of this country, but you are also a veteran who suffers from PTSD. That is a fact. Therefore, it doesn't make you any less of a human being for wanting to feel as much as you can."

"What about the people around me?" Lexa almost yelled at the psychiatrist. "I can barely sleep. I lash out at them. What if I hurt them? Even if I don't want to?"

"Your Highness," Niylah sighed, leaning forward from her chair to lean against the desk. The pen had stopped tapping and been abandoned. The psychiatrist's fingers were laced together as she shot the princess a thoughtful look. "The people around you are _still_ around you, aren't they?"

Lexa stilled at the proclamation.

"Once again, yes, you have a problem, but it's not your fault. PTSD is _not_ your fault," Niylah stressed. "You're here because you want to face it and you want to get rid of it as a problem, but if you allow it to hinder you from what you want to do and what you deserve, then you wouldn't have much of a life either way. Then what is the point of you paying me five hundred dollars an hour at all?"

* * *

The sun was already setting by the time she had exited Niylah's office. But this time, she didn't feel as lost or heavy as she usually was after a session. In fact, she could hardly remember the last time she felt so purposeful, so much so that she didn't even need Gustus to tell her where to go after they got out to the streets.

By the time they arrived to the apartment building, the sun had already retired for the day and the moon had taken over, illuminating the streets in harmony with the streetlights. There was a light breeze that brushed through grasses and trees, whistling through the particles and singing in her ears. She felt light, but not the bad kind of light. She didn't even wait for Gustus case the surroundings out before she ignored the elevator in favor of the stairs, climbing them two steps at a time until she reached the intended floor.

Her sneakers screeched to a halt outside the door she was looking for. She was panting. Her heart was pounding like never before. Once, she had thought that being invaded by insurgents at two in the morning in the middle of Libya would be the most nerve wracking thing she could experience. That thought turned out to be false, as her fist came to a pause an inch from the door.

 _If you allow it to hinder you from what you want to do and what you deserve, you wouldn't have much of a life either way_.

She closed her eyes, took five deep breaths, in and out, slow and steady. Calm down, soldier. This wasn't a thirteen year old boy with a turban and an AK-47 in his lanky arms. This wasn't a dilapidated cabin that could very well be the base of an LIFG faction. This was an apartment building north of Harley Oaks in Polis. This was no warzone.

Her fist rapped on the door three times. She allowed her arms to hang by her sides as she waited for it to open. Her sharp ears picked up on Gustus finally catching up to her at the end of the corridor, picked up on the crickets harmonizing, picked up on the wind whistling, and picked up on the muffled footsteps on the other side of the door.

The lock rattled. The knob twisted. The door opened.

"Lexa?"

The princess took one look at Clarke, taking in her honey blonde hair cascading down her shoulders and the loose sweater and the sleep shorts and the shining blue eyes that had changed the course of Lexa's life the moment they laid on her. Lexa took one look at Clarke, and she pushed forward, gently cradled Clarke's cheeks in her hands, and captured her lips with her own.

* * *

 **the end.**

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 **kidding, no. there are still some things to figure out - like finn and abby and lexa's ptsd and the whole shebang but yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they kissed**

 **also i don't even watch the show anymore but what the fuck how dare jrot use recycled footage to fuck me up what the fuck**


	11. fortis in arduis

**while i'm still looking for a job and am currently still a useless person, i figured i could update this fic asap. in any case, wish me luck on finally getting an income, yeah?**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

"Alexandria Woods, I swear to god –" Her mother cut herself off as she strode into Lexa's office, hauled her up from her chair behind the desk, and pulled her into a tight hug. "What is it with you and not coming home? And Gus wasn't with even with you!" Storme whisper-shrieked into Lexa's ear.

The younger woman blinked at the sudden tackle. If this had occurred before Niylah, before Clarke, she would have flipped her mother on her back and had her foot on the queen's neck before the woman could even utter a word. But now, all she had to do was take two deep breaths and smell her mother's shampoo and remember that there was an exit and it was right there.

Lexa hugged her mother back and patted her back in reassurance. "I texted Lincoln."

Storme, thankfully, released her daughter from her motherly grasp. The princess might have been healing, but it was a slow process. Her susceptibility to close contacts only extended so far; the only person she could handle prolonged full body contact with was…well, Lexa was certain that she could try for a bit longer when she and Clarke met again.

The queen groaned in complaint as she rolled her eyes. "Your brother is barely home now. He's always out too but at least he comes home!" she said pointedly, not letting go Lexa's arms.

Lexa had a vague idea as to _why_ Lincoln was barely home. It seemed they held each other's secrets. She couldn't help but inwardly rejoice at the idea of Anya being so out of the loop _for once_. Well, if he was withholding her secret as he had promised, she could do the same.

"I texted Anya too."

"Your sister has a wedding to prepare for. And she has many more matters to attend to, being the first in line and all that. I only knew you'd be absent from dinner last night because Gus called his wife and Penelope came over to inform us! And then he came back this morning without you!" Storme complained, exasperation apparent in her tone and tight eyes. "Honestly, since when did your father and I raise such irresponsible children?"

"Hey, I'm responsible!"

"You told us about becoming a soldier _after_ you signed up for the army," her mother deadpanned.

Lexa opened her mouth but found no words to properly retort. Well, the woman had been won numerous international debate championships, among others, before she became Queen Storme the First – Anya had been the only child to inherit their mother's smart mouth.

"Okay, fair," she deflated.

Her mother released a noise of knowingness and satisfaction before she looped their arms together. And before Lexa knew it, her mother had handed her the cane and they were walking out of her office together and walking down the hall, offering occasional nods to the passing by staff.

Lexa had to momentarily mourn at the thought of having to return to her mountain of work tomorrow morning. That was the price of not bothering with work for two days. Then again, it was worth it, considering how she had spent her last two days. She would happily face piles of paperwork if it meant 48 uninterrupted hours with Clarke Griffin.

"So where were you?"

"I had business," Lexa evaded.

"A business that requires you to stay out all night?"

"It was last minute."

"Should I be worried?"

"I'm fine, Mom."

"The last time you did something last minute, you shipped off to Afghanistan for your first tour."

Okay, yeah, her mother was never going to let that go. To any stranger, it would sound like the woman was holding a grudge against her daughter – a grudge that lasted a little more than six years. But it wasn't; it was far from a grudge.

No parent would like for their children to go off to a warzone for _years_ , not knowing how they were holding up and always on the edge, scared of receiving unfavorable news in the form of uniformed soldiers knocking on your door with their hats removed. Any parent would have been hysterical, biting off their nails, _emoting_.

But for six years, Queen Storme had had to remain composed, be the elegant matriarch of the country, _proud_ that her daughter was one of the many brave soldiers fighting for this country. Inside, the daily reminder that Lexa wasn't home, was off somewhere in a war-torn country, sleeping next to lethal weapons and operating said weapons, facing off insurgents and terrorists. The rulers of this country had to deal with the thought that their _child_ was risking her life every day, and it was highly likely that they would never see her again – and they were _not_ allowed to show it.

Lexa could still remember the looks on her parents' faces after she had woken up from the long surgery upon landing back in her homeland. She could count with two hands how many times she had seen them so vulnerable and transparent with their emotions – that was one of those times. Her mother unabashedly broke into hysterical tears when she saw Lexa open her eyes; her father had tears clinging to the edges of his eyes, holding onto his wife and clasping his daughter's hand like a lifeline.

She pulled the two of them to a sharp stop, right in front of a rather large painting of her great grandmother. Ignoring the piercing gaze of the woman that her father had once described as the most rigid human being he had ever countered, she patted her mother's hand looped through her elbow and offered a smile that was as reassuring as possible.

"I'm retired, Mom."

Storme locked onto Lexa's eyes, as discerning as ever. "But you want to, don't you?" she whispered, her voice pained and low. "You want to go back."

Those words sounded like a lightning strike, terrifying and loud and so much like a gunshot. Lexa had to stop herself from jumping in place. Instead, she stood there, frozen and entirely wanting to be anywhere but here right now.

She would have said yes one month ago. That she wanted to go back to the hell that she had come back from – at least the gunshots were real; at least when she woke up in cold sweat, she wasn't the only one; at least when she started awake from her sleep, there were real combatants attacking outside their doorstep; at least she would have a _reason_ for her current state of messed up fucking state of mind.

One month ago, she couldn't talk to anyone, or she couldn't _bring herself_ to talk to anyone. It was her burden to bear alone. Until one night one month ago, she ran into the doctor who literally kept her life from hanging on a thread. And everything changed. Sure, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Nightmares were still there, but she could sleep through them now. She was swimming regularly. She met a _girl_ , a fantastic and wonderful and fabulous girl.

"No," she told Storme. Her sister was getting married. Her brother was, possibly, hopefully, dreadfully, falling in love. Her parents were right there, still alive and still the best models of love in Lexa's life. Clarke was a few miles away, doing her doctor things while also taking time away to text Lexa in intervals. And they were all here for Lexa, unwavering in their care and support. "I don't want to be anywhere but here, Mom."

Her mother inhaled, shivering and weak. "You promise?"

Lexa released their arms from one another and wrapped hers around her mother's shoulder. It was awkward, given that the older woman was taller than her – whoever said that children would always be taller than their mothers were lying – but she tried anyway. And she pressed a kiss to Storme's temple.

For someone who had never been a very tactile person, much less so after her honorable discharge, this was as much of a promise as the Woods matriarch could get from her beloved daughter.

* * *

The sun was already climbing down the horizon, emitting an orange glow that spanned over the edges of buildings and covering the meager humans with its power for a few more minutes until it could serve them again in twelve hours. She had never been fond of orange as a color, but she supposed it was only because she considered a color so majestic that it only fit the sun.

Lexa would love to capture this moment forever, be it via photograph or drawing. The gigantic and incredibly hot star hovering over the hospital building, almost threatening in its presence, casting the most majestic glow over its expanse, while Clarke walked out of the building, hair pulled up into a ponytail, dressed in a blue button down shirt with four buttons undone and a pair of sweatpants.

Lexa wanted to look at this forever.

But alas, the veteran had not a single artistic bone in her body. She was good with submachine guns and knives and policy papers, but asking her to do anything _artsy_ at all would be a bad call. Hell, she once had a tutor who resigned because her handwriting was too chicken scratch for him to decipher.

Men, so damn weak.

"You're getting very brave these days," Clarke commented, trying to sound tough but failing as her smile widened.

The brunette hummed and returned with her own smile. "I don't know. I guess sleeping with a pretty blonde doctor does that to me."

Clarke's eye twitched a little. She lifted her hand to tug the bill of Lexa's cap higher for better access as she leaned forward to capture Lexa's very prepared lips. They remained there for several prolonged seconds, with Lexa's back leaning against a wall and Clarke leaning into her – just two girls kissing each other outside of a hospital, no big deal, not like one of them was the princess of the country or something.

One of the brunette's hands curled softly behind the doctor's head, and the other held firmly onto Clarke's hip. She slotted one knee between Clarke's legs and was not ashamed in her firmness to place it _exactly_ where she knew would elicit the most virile response from her companion. Just as anticipated, Clarke jolted slightly and drew back, panting, pupils blown, and a chastising frown at the bridge of her nose.

"I'm not sure the people will do well to their princess conducting public indecency," she managed between gulps of desperate air. Still, her hands never left Lexa's waist and she didn't exactly step back to get away from Lexa's thigh. The princess counted that as a win. "You're doing this on purpose."

Lexa glanced shortly at the lips she already missed terribly and then back up at the eyes that she missed equally. "Am I?"

Clarke scoffed and reached up to help readjust Lexa's cap, then she untangled herself from the mess of limbs that Lexa had deliberately dragged her into. Note that the brunette definitely _did not_ whine in complaint at the loss of contact, and it definitely did not get cut short when Clarke bravely slid their hands together and their fingers locked together.

Her heart beat a wild pang against her chest at the weirdly comfortably intimate contact and she looked down at their joined fingers – pale against tan and one more riddled with calluses than the other. She looked up at Clarke again, and found herself staring at an unfamiliar doubtful look on Clarke's face.

Lexa smiled and squeezed her hand before tucking their hands into her jacket pocket. Then they started walking out of the perimeters of the hospital, where Gustus was dutifully waiting, puffing on his cigarette. Lexa paused in her steps and stared at him as he nonchalantly pushed away from the streetlight he was leaning against, still smoking.

"How many sticks have you had today?" she questioned.

Gus raised his brows and had the audacity to smirk as he pointedly looked at Lexa and Clarke's hands before looking back up at her.

She felt her mouth open as the disbelief started to take hold. Next to her, Clarke snorted and quickly hid away her mirth by covering her own mouth, willfully tilting into Lexa's weight as she hid her face from the giant bodyguard. Lexa threw the doctor a look that translated her incredulity at the blonde's obvious betrayal.

Narrowing her eyes at her bodyguard, she looked at him in a way that told him they would be having a discussion when they were alone.

"Stop laughing," she chastised Clarke as they started walking again.

Clarke, instead of obeying – because no one listened to Lexa anymore these days, apparently – just snorted louder. "I'm sorry. I just can't believe you got blackmailed by your bodyguard."

"It wasn't – that wasn't blackmail!" Lexa exclaimed, sending a dirty glance at Gustus behind them.

Clarke hummed. "It looked like blackmail to me."

Lexa huffed. "To blackmail a princess is treasonous."

"Doesn't change the fact that he did, in fact, blackmail you."

Lexa held on tighter to Clarke's hand in her jacket pocket. She nudged into Clarke's shoulder and pouted. "This is wrong on so many levels. Where is the respect?"

"Like I said, I've seen your innards."

"Still not sexy."

* * *

One of her legs was just inserted into the pair of jeans that had been resolutely abandoned at the apartment door when Clarke finally stirred from her slumber. The edges of Lexa's lips extended at the sight, but she didn't pause in zipping up her jeans and looking around the room to look for her bra.

Clarke released a long moan as she stretched in her bed, the blanket falling down below her chest at her movement. Hoarse and bare and so fucking sexy – Lexa wanted very much to strip down again and pounce on the blonde, but the clock on the bedside table glowed with the numbers to indicate the time, reminding Lexa of the secrecy of this relationship and her parents were probably keeping watch for her return.

"Oh," Clarke voiced as soon as she was conscious enough to comprehend what Lexa was up to. "Wow, were you planning to just sneak out like that?" It came out meant as a tongue in cheek comment, but Lexa, who had become so attuned to Clarke's mannerisms, could hear the hint of insecurity.

She clipped on her bra and picked up her discarded flannel shirt from the floor, smiling at Clarke while simultaneously enjoying the way the full scope of the moonlight, unhindered by the blinds, cast over the blonde. Truly, Lexa wasn't sure she had ever seen anything so beautiful. Once again, she would really love to have some kind of artful bone in her body.

"You were out like a light," she said as she started to button up her shirt.

"And?"

"I was going to leave you a note."

"A note, huh?"

"Stop it," she admonished as she started tucking her shirt into her jeans. "You _know_ it's not like that."

"Sorry," Clarke muttered, pouting a little. She had pulled herself to sit against the headboard of her bed, the blanket pulled up to her chest. Lexa stood across the room, just a few feet away from the foot of the bed, and let the woman take her in. "Usually, I'm the one sneaking out at night."

Lexa narrowed her eyes, feeling the unpleasant flare of jealousy flaring up in her chest. "Usually, huh?"

Clarke grinned. "Was that what I sounded like?"

"What?"

"All…jealous."

"I wasn't jealous."

"Uh huh." Clarke took one long look at Lexa and hummed appreciatively. "Have I ever told you that you are _very_ pleasing to the eyes?"

"Well, you did say something to that effect the first time we saw each other again at the park," Lexa remarked mischievously, smirking.

"Okay, get out." Clarke emphasized her point by flinging a point in Lexa's direction, though it bounced against the chest a few feet away and bounced back onto the carpet.

"Awful aim, Dr. Griffin."

She took note of the framed letter sitting on the mantel over the chest, moving over to pick it up and have a closer observation. She stared at her own penmanship, still stark and blue over the paper that she had requested from one of the entourage that her brother had brought along that day.

At that point in her military career, Lexa had already begun to get nightmares. Hauntings from her dead colleagues. Sleeping pills helped, but those things made her overslept more times than she deserved. The habit of taking walks at night to stay awake definitely had not only started when she came back to Polis. It wasn't a big deal, that habit; her comrades had been doing the same thing. The base was always swarming with quiet soldiers shaking from their own ghosts at night.

That night was probably the only night she could actually _drift_ off to sleep without meaning to, and without any nightmares to boot. She could easily attribute that to the morphine, but she was quite certain that Clarke's presence played a huge role in that. And then she had been awoken rather rudely by her brother and his entourage of medical and military officers marching in, ready to take her home regardless of her protests.

She was lucky that they even let her delay their departure by writing that letter and making sure that the boss at the hospital would deliver it to Clarke. Lexa would have loved to get to see Clarke again before she left – she made that pretty clear in the letter – but hey, the memories of the doctor would suffice for now.

"You have a way with words," Clarke commented.

When Lexa turned around, she was already dressed in a loose shirt she dug up somewhere with a pair of panties. She sighed in disappointment. Well, good thing too, since she definitely would never leave if Clarke had gotten out of bed naked. She placed the letter back where it belonged and picked up her cap from the floor, tugging in onto her head.

"I have to go."

Clarke nodded. "Be safe."

Once she was close enough, Lexa surreptitiously reached out, curled her arm around Clarke's waist, and pulled their bodies close together. The blonde heaved a surprised yelp that was so low in her throat that goosebumps rose over Lexa's skin.

She cradled Clarke's cheek with a hand and went in for a long and lasting kiss. The same kiss that had her toes curling and the bumps on her skin more visible. She made sure to swipe her tongue over Clarke's lower lip and elicit a dirty moan from the blonde before drawing back with a satisfied smile but still hungry lips.

"Consider that my note," she cheekily said.

Clarke huffed and groaned at the same time. "You are the most unfair person on the face of the earth."

"As if," she said, retreating out the bedroom door as she walked backwards. "You're the unfair one with that face."

Lexa walked out of the apartment with Clarke's surprised laughter ringing in her ears.

* * *

The coffee this morning was decent. Good, even. Then again, for someone who had spent a little more than six years drinking bitter dredges from a thermos, she couldn't complain. She'd take any coffee over that which she had to drink in the army.

Rachel was waiting outside the office while she was ruminating on bad coffee and heading over from a hearty breakfast with her family. Yes, she had made a point to finally start joining them for breakfast and get the day going. Niylah had rightfully pointed out that ditching her family during breakfast wasn't the best idea if she was trying to actively rebuild their bond. So she started to join her family after her swimming session instead of slinking away to have her own breakfast in her office.

It was great advice. She enjoyed getting to sit at the table and engage with her family without talking about work. Getting to see their grumpy faces in the morning and tease them about it. Sharing secret looks with different members whenever they thought of an inside joke. That was probably also why the coffee tasted good this morning.

However, unlike the usual peppy Rachel that often had Lexa wondering whether she made the right choice in hiring the girl, this Rachel seemed jumpy and maybe even scared, dare Lexa observed.

Lexa slowed down and narrowed her eyes at her secretary, suspicious and worried at the same time. She leaned on her cane. "Is everything okay?"

"Good morning, Your Highness."

Even that came out squeaky and completely out of character. This had Lexa narrowing her eyes into slits. "Yes, good morning. Is everything okay?"

Rachel bit her lower lip for a moment, eyes flitting about, landing on the empty armor at the opposite wall, then back at her superior. "I just want to say that I followed your instructions and told him everything you said. Verbatim. As you told me to." She swallowed and shook her head. "So it's not my fault, Your Highness."

"What isn't your fault, Rachel?"

The young girl sighed and handed over the newspaper tucked under her arm. Lexa didn't exactly have to search to find what exactly Rachel was talking about.

There she was – a photo of her in fatigues with a submachine gun slung over her shoulder, her hair pulled up into a tight bun as per regulation, leaning over a strategy table along with the other soldiers in her unit. She recalled this very moment very clearly. It was just a month after she made Commander, and they were preparing to invade an insurgent base to the north of their base.

It was the first time she ever had to take control of an op and ensure its success. Safe to say that she was appropriately nervous for the op. The good thing was that it was carried out successfully – they managed to take out the insurgent group without hurting the civilians. In fact, the next morning, she and a few other men from her unit had joined the kids in a game of soccer.

But that wasn't the point of this article. Somehow, just by seeing that photo in large print, almost taking over two thirds of the page, she already knew who made this happen. And not even the memories of this op could assuage her anger as she took in the headline.

 _Princess Lexa Considering a Visit to Libya for Service Day_

As she read the article, her fingers tightened over the edge of the paper. Her brain scanned the incorrect words, the false conjecture, the fake claims, and the quotes that she didn't even remember speaking, all printed out neatly and nicely on the first page of – she glanced up – _Polis Sentinel_.

Once she had read the last word of the article, she snapped it down and sent a glare at her secretary, who cowered away. To save Rachel the fear, she redirected her glare towards the empty armor. Every bit of her wanted to swing her cane at the thing and topple it over. But that would be pointless – and it wouldn't do her condition any good.

As the two of them stood there, Lexa considered her options – the best way to navigate this mess without giving into a public questioning or create chaos for the relationship between the monarchy and the government. She might be the princess, but she had learned enough about this country's governance to understand that her role in the government only went so far. If she wasn't the monarch, she had no say, basically.

Well, she wasn't _supposed_ to have a say.

She straightened at that, glanced down at that increasingly irritating photo again, and started marching down the hallway, her limp more prominent in her rush. Regardless, she had to fix this. She had to find the man who had the power to fix this.

After all, she had promised her mother that she wasn't going back. And Lexa had lived her whole life keeping her word. A few lies told by the _irresponsible_ Minister of Defense Department were not going to change that.

One thing for sure: she was going to need _barrels_ of coffee.

* * *

 **what? there _has_ to be drama at some point**


	12. coniunctis viribus

**it's soft. i'm soft. one thing at a time.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

A full eight hours of sleep. Imagine that. Eight hours uninterrupted. Eyes closing and the mind drifting off to unconsciousness and _staying_ there. Phone silent. Pager not going off. Blanket protective and comforting. Nothing but rest.

How ironic that she could only dream of sleep when dreams should only occur while sleeping, Clarke bemoaned inwardly as she seeped on her coffee and padded down the lobby to the elevator bank. She could have slept, though. The last two days had been…invigorating, to say the least. She had never realized sex could be so vitalizing to the soul until Lexa showed up at her door and kissed the living sense out of her.

It was that exact revitalization that pushed Clarke to finally finish up the email that she had deliberately left sitting in her draft for the last two days; the excuse being that Lexa was right there and honestly, there was no way Clarke could ever resist those lips and those eyes and those everything. And with just a push of a button, Clarke had sent herself down a spiral of anxiety and wakefulness, resulting in her sleeplessness for the whole night.

Clarke was fully aware that she had sent her email after working hours, therefore, no one at the office would be reading her email until this morning. But she couldn't help it anyway, because what if someone just felt like checking the feedback email? What if it was the chairman of the council? What if they decided to reach out to her at one in the morning?

What if they were doing it _right now_?

Her hand jerked a little that the dark liquid almost sloshed over the edge of her paper cup. After having pressed the button, she elected to drain the whole cup to avoid any possible sloshes. Her hands were very important, especially in her line of work and her recently undried sex life.

She had just tossed the cup and barely felt the caffeine hitting her brain when a pair of sneakers ran up to her and skidded to a halt just a few inches away. She looked to her left and frowned at Raven's wide eyes and heavy breathing.

"What's wrong with you?" she mumbled, still not feeling the coffee yet.

"Did you know?"

"Did I know what?"

"The princess."

"What about Lexa?"

One of the elevators dinged and opened its doors. She went inside, Raven close on her heels. She was still fidgeting about whether she wanted to go to her floor and risk running into Marcus Kane when, suddenly, a phone was forced into her vision. Right up to her face. Like so close that her nose was almost touching the screen and her eyes could barely make out the screen.

"Jesus, you are so rude," she complained as she smacked Raven's hand away.

" _Look_!"

Clarke threw her best friend a dirty look before obeying. Her breath shortstopped and pulled into her lungs that she actually could not breathe for like two seconds as she read the headline. Instead of pressing a button, her hand reached out to pull the knob that would stop the elevator all together.

* * *

It was at hour five of her shift that it all finally caught up to her. She was okay being nervous about things – Clarke Griffin was a good multitasker, Abby Griffin had made sure of that; she was capable of worrying about multiple things while making sure that her patients acquired the best care possible.

But when _two_ things were very big things; she discovered that she didn't have the mental capacity to think about both while also suturing up a kid's ass because he sliced himself on the kitchen knife. She blinked away her thoughts and finished up the suture, making sure to smile at the kid before slinking away and finding the nearest emergency exit to hide at the stairs.

No one from the Council had reached out to her yet – she knew, because she did not turn off the ringer on her phone and she had been religiously checking her emails and call logs every five minutes. That, in turn, also made her aware of the fact that _Lexa_ also hadn't reached out to her, and it had been _five_ hours since she saw the news.

Not only that. There were no press conferences. No replies to press enquiries. Neither confirmation nor denial. The palace was essentially silent about the whole thing.

In the elevator, Clarke had to stare at the headline for close to fifteen minutes, completely quiet and feeling almost as if she had lost the ability to understand the English language. She _could_ read the headline, but what she could not do was _understand_ what it was supposed to tell her. And then she had returned Raven her phone, punched the knob back in, and fled the hell out of the car before Raven could pursue her further.

For the last five hours, she did four things in rotation: treating patients, checking her emails, thinking about the haunting headline, and avoiding Raven and Octavia. Hour five was the breaking point, and here she was.

How ironic, when just two days ago, she was having the best sex of her life and wondering if she would ever be happier than realizing that the princess was sleeping peacefully next to her. Now, she was worrying about her job, whether she had ruined a man's career, and whether she would still have sex.

Something vibrated in her coat pocket and she literally jumped and almost tumbled down the stairs, only catching herself by holding on to the railing. She fumbled in her pocket and produced the vibrating object, unsure of whether she should be relieved that it was her phone and not her pager.

Unknown number.

"Oh shit," she muttered. "Hello?"

"Good afternoon. Am I speaking to Dr. Clarke Griffin?"

She gulped. "Yes, this is she."

"Hello, Dr. Griffin. My name's Rachel Phang. I am Princess Lexa's secretary." Clarke's heart leaped into her throat; maybe falling down the stairs wasn't such a bad idea. "Her Royal Highness is indisposed at the moment. However, she has instructed me to contact you and tell you to not, and I quote, 'listen to anything the Sentinel says. It's rubbish.'"

Okay, thank god she didn't fall down the stairs. Clarke pulled herself back more so she could lean against the door, effectively blocking anyone from entering. Let's just hope that no one set off any fire alarms during this phone call.

"She has also asked me to inquire whether she could call or meet you tonight. Whenever and wherever you prefer," Rachel continued.

"Right, I –" Clarke gulped again. Her throat had gone impossibly dry at hearing the voice of a girl who worked at the _palace_. Sure, she was sleeping with a woman who was _born_ in the hospital, but this was a pretty big deal. This actually made everything seemed…realer. "I have 36-hour shift today," she proclaimed, cursing at herself for picking up the shift in the first place.

"Oh, okay. Of course. I'll just tell the princess that and see if –"

"Can she come to the hospital?"

There was a pause. "Perhaps the hospital isn't such a good idea, given the publicity recent news have garnered her."

Clarke closed her eyes. "I – okay. Maybe just ask her that and see what she says. If not, then she can call me. Anytime. I'll just – my phone will be with me the whole time. Tonight. Whenever she want. Whether she comes or not."

When had she become so pathetic? Since her first boyfriend in high school, she had never gone so far as to _desperately_ sit by the phone and wait for a call; it _wasn't_ necessary, because they _always_ came to her. She was a catch, and they knew that.

God, of course it would take a fucking princess to drive her back down this road. This desperate, foolish, and kind of pathetic road, where she was just _waiting_ for a pretty girl to call her or text her or _something_. Her head was a mess. Her heart had gone so haywire she was thinking of getting Wells to perform a cardiac checkup just to be safe.

"Certainly. I will inform the princess right away. Have a good day, Dr. Griffin." The call was cut off instantly.

The doctor lowered the phone slowly and looked at the blank screen.

"Yeah, fat chance, Rachel."

* * *

Just because things were hanging on a thread did not mean she could not do her job. Somehow, in a weird way, that call had managed to calm her enough to let her continue to do her job without the sense of disruption from earlier. It wasn't even Lexa, but the fact that she had found even a minute to tell her secretary to call her told her something; told her that she was important; told her that Lexa _saw_ her and _remembered_ her.

At hour sixteen, a patient came rolling in that required ortho, cardio, and trauma in the same OR. But as she scrubbed in, she didn't forget to instruct her resident to hold on to her phone and pick up Lexa's call, if it ever came in. The other two surgeons had looked at her weirdly, because it was against some unwritten protocol to never allow distractions such as a phone in the OR – she had chosen to ignore them.

Whatever, Clarke Griffin was going to _ace_ this multitasking bullshit.

"Dr. Griffin, an Alex is on the phone for you."

She was elbows deep in the patient's abdomen. She nodded and allowed the resident to place the phone to her ear.

"You have a _secretary_?" she said first thing.

"I'd be dead without her."

"No, you'd be dead without me."

Lexa chuckled. And odd as it may, that sounded good. "Where are you?"

Clarke lifted her gaze to find Wells' eyeing her weirdly. She raised her brows in a challenging manner before saying, "Never mind that. What the hell was that?"

Lexa sighed into the phone, so loudly that Clarke could practically feel it in her ear. " _That_ was a dirty and political move pulled by the most useless Defense Minister this country has ever had. I've been up to my eyeballs trying to talk to my parents about fixing this farce. Where are you?"

Pausing for a moment, the doctor glanced at the vitals monitor and nodded to herself, continuing her work. "Wait, Thelonious Jaha? My mother likes him." This time, _both_ Wells and Murphy looked up from their work to stare at her momentarily. Clarke waved them away.

"Maybe I should educate your mother on how a minister is _supposed_ to function before she likes another useless one," Lexa grumbled. "Where are you?"

"Okay, so are you leaving?" Clarke asked the most important question.

"Seriously, where the hell are you? I'm literally sitting inside the lobby of your hospital and I'd really like it if you could find a place for me to hide before someone figures out who I am."

"Wait, what?"

"You told me to meet you at the hospital."

"Oh my god." Clarke stopped working and raised her bloody hands in the air as she ran the words through her head, staring blankly at Wells' bloody chest. She glanced at him in panic, a look he returned cluelessly. "Oh shit. Okay. Just – hold on. Give me a minute. Fuck. Hold on." She pulled away from the phone and looked to her resident. "Call Raven. Or Octavia. Whoever's still in the hospital. Call her now. _Call_!"

While the resident dialed, she placed her hands back into the cavity of the patient whose life three surgeons were saving.

"Wanna fill us in on what that was about?"

Clarke turned to Murphy, who literally just opened a skull flap and was working on an actual brain. Working synapses and nerves. Getting a patient's brain back to full function. She turned to Wells, who literally had a heart on bypass so he could ensure that it wouldn't be under too much stress, who was renewing bags of blood every fifteen minutes, who was literally holding a heart in his big dark hands. She glanced back down at her hands, removing remnants of glasses and suturing wounds as she went.

Unable to help herself, she heaved a chuckle. Her life had become so fucking wild since she met a princess at the park.

* * *

The feeling was so hard to explain – the moment she opened the door, walked in, and found Lexa sitting on the very cot that she had so often occupied during these late hours after long surgeries. There were no words to explain it, but the room did not seem so dark and the exhaustion did not feel so heavy and the anxiety did not feel so constricting.

She saw Lexa and she wanted to float. Clarke was so fucking done for, for this very woman who hadn't even the _slightest_ idea of what she did to the blonde just by being there. She closed the door behind her, leaned against it, and breathed for a few seconds, unable to resist from smiling at Lexa, who was smiling back at her, albeit gingerly.

"So," Lexa started as she stood up and stuck her hands in her back pockets. "How was your day?"

Clarke stared, and then she heaved a chuckle, which elicited a responding chuckle from the princess. She pushed away from the door, one hand reaching behind to lock it, and strode the short distance towards Lexa so she could sling her arms around the woman's neck and pull her close. Visibly surprised, Lexa still did not hesitate to respond by encasing Clarke to her around the waist.

In grade five, when the Griffin family had been intact and the house by the cul-de-sac used to be filled with daily bouts of laughter, Jake Griffin had once saved Clarke from drowning in their backyard pool. For some reason, the float had been punctured, and the little girl had yet to grasp the technicalities of using her arms and legs to keep herself afloat. She hadn't even sunk really low until her father had come rushing out, leaped into the pool, and saved his daughter from drowning to death.

But she knew how it felt like to sink. It was horrible. Everything was blurry and her eyes stung; she hadn't gone into the deep end of a water body since then.

But she sank right into Lexa's arms, right under her embrace, down through the depths of everything warm and sweet. She had hugged many people throughout her twenty-seven years of life, and yet this one – this was the hug of strong arms and confident affirmations, capable of telling the target who they were, body, brain, and soul. This was a breathing duvet.

Before she knew it, Clarke released a low hum into the material of Lexa's silk shirt. Comfortable and unwilling to let go. The brunette didn't complain. She hummed in return and just tightened her arms, as if she knew just how protected Clarke felt under this trance.

"Yeah," Lexa sighed. "Me too."

Around them were…plates. Plates of government and press and careers and superiors and close family friends. Plates and plates that had gathered over a whole day of lack of communications, anxiety, and the inability to see the future. They were unsmashable. There was no pushing these plates aside to hide them from grandmother.

For now, though, they could have these plates all around them. And they could stay where they were. Just for a little while.

* * *

"Wait, so you _are_ going back?"

"I'm not going back."

"You said you're going."

"For a trip."

The moon had long since made her appearance and hung up there for all to see, illuminating the path for the lost as best she could, alerting people of their needs for rest and some of their times to start working, watching over everyone.

Throughout the entire day, time had been so lost on Clarke, so lost in her thoughts of probably ruining man's career and her own career and whether or not she would even have a career by the end of the day. And she had been so surprised, once extracted from Lexa's embrace, to see that it had gone dark and the on-call room was unlit.

Lexa was sitting on the bed, while Clarke had pulled a chair over to sit in front of her, their hands tangled together and firmly on top of Clarke's lap. There was no way she was going another minute without some sort of contact unless absolutely necessary.

She tilted her head at Lexa's statement, seemingly casual and non-impactful. Looking away from the brunette, she wondered if they had gone far enough in their relationship to say the stuff she was thinking, or whether she should leave it up to Niylah, the actual professional.

Though Clarke might have taken two psychology electives in college, those were just the basic stuff – there was a reason she had referred Lexa to Niylah instead of taking it on herself. She took an oath to do no harm.

"What?"

Clarke looked back to Lexa, who had ducked her head to get a good look of her expression. She shook her head with a strained smile and leaned back in her chair, stroking the skin of Lexa's knuckles with her thumb.

Furrowing her brows, the princess placed another hand on top of Clarke's. "What is it, Clarke?"

"It's just –"

Clarke sighed heavily and keeled fully forward for her forehead to fully touch their clasped hands. She breathed in Lexa's skin, taking in the distinct cologne and forcing herself to stop being so fucking insecure. If she kept this up, there would soon be a day when even the ever patient and kind Lexa Woods would be done with her.

"Hey," Lexa whispered, jostling her hand just a little to push the blonde to lift her head. "You can tell me anything." Then she added, "Even if I don't like it."

The blonde sat upright and adjusted her position on the increasingly uncomfortable chair. "I know enough soldiers to know that everything that happened in the warzone will do _something_ to the veterans that make them want to go back even if they _can't_ ," she said as succinctly as she could manage, eyes locked onto their hands.

What came after was discomforting and quite probably yet another one to the list of the many things that made Clarke anxious. Lexa was hushed and unmoving, but maybe the fact that she didn't remove her hand entirely from Clarke's was a good thing – or maybe she was too frozen in rage to move anything at all.

God, she _knew_ it. She should have left this to Niylah. Who the fuck was she to offer an opinion like that? She was just a doctor who sewed people up and touched actual hearts and saw the insides of the princess' absolutely hot body. She was no expert on mental health or psychological synapses. She probably wasn't even correct in her conclusion.

 _Nice job, Clarke. Way to let your insecurity get ahead of you._

"God, am I really so bad at this that everyone just thinks that it's not possible for me to just want to stay here?" Lexa finally broke the silence with a broken whisper, triggering an immediate response from the blonde by way of an immediate locking of eyes and an open mouth.

"What?"

At the edge of Lexa's eyes were shimmering but unshed tears. Those lips that gave Clarke the best of kisses tugged with a self-deprecating smile.

"I mean, what am I not doing right? What can I do?" Lexa started asking, voice shaking. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Lexa –"

I'm going to therapy. I swim every morning. I have meals with my family. I spend time with you. What else can I do?"

"Hey, baby –"

"Why do you all keep assuming that I don't want to be here with you? Is this – am I not _enough_?"

" _Lexa_ ," Clarke urged in a stern whisper, one hand already slithered behind the brunette's neck and head bent forward to press their foreheads together. "Take a deep breath, Lexa. Just follow me, okay?" she instructed as she practiced the breathing exercise with the brunette.

The last time she saw the brunette so vulnerable was when they were both sitting in her living room and she had practically made Lexa spill her heart out about what being in the war had done to her and how her entire life had culminated into this. It broke her heart last time; it was breaking her heart this time.

Simultaneously, she inhaled and exhaled with Lexa, and hated herself for being the one responsible for this bout of attack – as minor as it was. She did this. She blinked rapidly to force back her own tears. Lexa didn't need her to cry right now; she needed an anchor, and Clarke was the only other living person in this room with her. She definitely couldn't let Lexa run out of the room in full view and bring down the whole institution with her presence.

When it seemed like Lexa had stabled enough to be able to breathe on her own, Clarke didn't relent on her grip on Lexa's neck. One thing she had learnt from Niylah was to maintain physical contact to keep a reminder that they were in the present, wherever they were, and not the location of trauma.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to make you think those things." Lexa frowned. "I shouldn't have pretended like I'm an expert in these things. I'm not," she reaffirmed to both herself and Lexa. "If you say it's just a trip, then it's just a trip."

"It _is_ just a trip."

"Okay."

"I am involved with the Veterans' Agency and the Defense Department to work something consistent and sustainable for our country's veterans and their families."

"And I'm always in awe with you for that."

"But my parents told me that being behind the scenes isn't enough. It might work in the beginning, but in the long run, that just won't cut it," Lexa ranted, starting to sound impatient and frustrated. "They told me I have to be at the forefront, to let people see my face, then only will they find credibility in this program I'm building and start showing support for it."

"Right."

"So, you know, maybe Jaha's intentions weren't the best – he was definitely being selfish and trying to force my hand, and my dad and some general or something will deal with him soon. But it could work in my favor. Like, what better way to prove that I am the spearhead of this program than to show up back to my roots as a soldier on fucking Service Day, right?"

"That's a good point."

At this point, it wasn't Lexa simply explaining her situation to Clarke. It was her releasing all her frustration that had been pent up throughout the entire day to Clarke, and there was something about it that melted Clarke's heart almost immediately. Not a lot of people could say that they were who a princess sought after whenever she wanted to talk to someone.

Still, this was no time to feel personal satisfaction over that. She could do that on her own time. Now, when her pager wasn't buzzing and she was allowed this rare reprieve from her job, Lexa could have her. Lexa could have all of her.

"So I'm going to Libya. And it's just a trip. For three days. Showing my face and letting the press take photos and become the worst thing I imagine myself to be."

Clarke frowned at the sentiment.

"The purpose of this program isn't _that_."

Ah, so that was it. Lexa was camera shy and true to her intentions.

She just wanted to help and bring as much comfort as she could afford, being the daughter of the king and all that. It wasn't about fanfare and publicity. She didn't need the name and the praise. She didn't need people talking about how good she was to be so involved in these affairs. Lexa, because she had the noblest of hearts and the worst of survivor's guilt, just wanted people to be comfortable in their grief.

Clarke massaged the princess' nape, providing more grounding with motion and moving muscles. She wasn't going to say anything, not until she was certain that Lexa had calmed down enough and was rooted enough in this reality to be able to hear her. Earlier was enough of a lesson – she honestly should give Niylah another call just to get a grasp of how to help Lexa work through her attacks, be they minor or major.

Outside, the world had gotten quieter as time passed and it was getting nearer to a time where parents put the children to sleep and doctors called it a night and the night shift janitors put on their headphones to get in the groove of their job. Briefly, she wondered if Gustus was still stuck outside, but knowing him, he probably would be until his charge told him to go home, maybe not even then.

Clarke should probably talk to him too, if she was going to spend as much time with Lexa as she already was. He would know. He went to a fucking warzone because he wanted to protect Lexa, for fuck's sake.

She watched as Lexa came back into focus in the form of alert eyes and slowed breathing and loosening fingers. It was remarkable to see all this in person, kind of miraculous, and all the more special that she was one of the few to get to see this process.

"I know your parents are supposed to know more about this kind of stuff than you, but do you, truly, genuinely, want to go?" she asked gently, still massaging.

Lexa rolled her eyes slightly, withdrawing slightly so they could stop leaning foreheads together. Clarke's fingers stopped kneading and her hand slid away from her neck but stopped at a shoulder. She didn't want to let go yet – this was just selfishness now.

"I'm much bigger than just myself, Clarke," Lexa whispered, sounding rarely tired and worn out.

Almost for the first time since she entered the room, the mere doctor could see the responsibilities weighing down on the royal princess' shoulders. Heavy and unwavering – movable only if Lexa wanted to abandon her post and leave everything be. And from what Clarke knew of her, the brunette would die before she shirked her responsibilities.

"I'm sorry," Clarke repeated. "I shouldn't have said those things."

Lexa shook her head. And then she smiled gingerly. "I guess we still have a lot to learn about each other, huh?"

Clarke returned the smile. "I'm a patient girl."

"Just…" Lexa closed her eyes, like she was afraid to look at Clarke. "Just stay with me, please."

Instead of offering a verbal response, the blonde only shifted from the chair to the bed beside Lexa. She lied down on the bed, pulled Lexa down alongside, and adjusted themselves so that Lexa had lied down with her head tucked into the crook between Clarke's shoulder and neck. She rubbed her hand up and down the brunette's back as she hummed without any rhythm at all.

At this point, she couldn't leave even if she tried.

* * *

 **lexa's healing, but it takes time. once again, if i made any mistakes regarding the attacks and the symptoms of ptsd, please tell me. i don't want to make the accidental mistakes and offend someone. :)**


	13. ab intra

**wow, this took much longer than when my grandmother passed away. but it's work. it's always work. why am i an adult? fuck.**

 **and this chapter is significantly shorter than the others, and i would have written more, but it didn't feel right to keep going and ruin the cohesion, so here you go.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

The pool in the morning was chilly and smooth, especially after she had turned on the ventilation. Her leg that always had a mild ache which can be put to the back of her mind most of the time always felt the best in the pool. She didn't know what kind of science that was – she made a note to ask Clarke – but the water lapping against her skin and dragging her physique along as she swam her laps just did something to make the ache disappear all together.

After her fiftieth lap, she leaned against the pool wall and brushed her wet hair back from her face, giving herself time to take in the moisture surrounding her body and the lack of pressure on her bum leg. She forgot about the flight ticket Rachel had booked for her two days ago, and she forgot about the flight scheduled in two weeks, heading to what she would define as no man's land.

In the distance, her ears picked up on heavy footsteps, deliberately done by her bodyguard to alert so as not to have her give him a flying kick. Yeah, in spite of the therapy and the swims and the girlfriend, she still couldn't shake off the high alertness that had defined her since she got on the jet to ship out for the first time.

Gustus eventually emerged from the doorway that connected the pool building to the palace, stoic and all too awake for six in the morning. The woes of being a soldier, she supposed, they could never really kick the habit.

"Breakfast," he announced.

She leaned back a little, her eyes closing. She took a few breaths, inhaling the chlorine and the rising mildew of the sun rising. Behind her eyelids, she could see a head of blonde hair, a pair of intelligent blue eyes, haloed with the sunshine. She loved this view more than anything.

Lexa made her way to the ladder and slowly climbed up. As soon as her legs were exposed to air, she could feel it. The soreness climbing up, more acute than before because of her previous activity. She hid the wince from her bodyguard by turning her back to him as she wiped herself down with a towel.

Damn her leg. Damn everything.

* * *

This was a tense breakfast, unlike the others. Even before they knew about her issues and she started seeing Niylah, the Woods royal family always had good breakfasts – rampant, loud, and laughter abound. This was not.

Like she was too eager to get back to the piles of paperwork that would have undoubtedly gathered on her desk during the last two days of ignorance in favor of politics and dealing with Jaha, Lexa gobbled up the omelets and guzzled down the orange juice. Without glancing at her parents and almost feeling guilty for the look her siblings were sending her – it wasn't like this was her fault – she grabbed an apple from the fruit basket and stood up, bidding a quiet goodbye.

"Lexa," her father sternly stopped her, sounding admonished and impatient at the same time.

And even though she usually prided herself on her independence and strong headedness, she stopped in her tracks and turned around to face her parents, stone-faced enough to display her displeasure with them. Of course, her siblings had become the collateral of her stare, but they knew what was going on.

The entire palace administration had been in amok because of the screaming match between her and her parents, heard throughout the rooms they passed and the hallways they trekked. She could only count herself lucky for the loyalty their staff had towards the family. Otherwise, their shouting match would have been front page news the moment she had stepped out of the palace to sneak to the hospital.

Her mother looked exhausted and her father was frustrated – well, the roles had been reversed for once. Usually, Storme was the bad cop and Richmond was the kind cop who gave chocolate bars. Regardless, it wasn't her fault.

"You can't blame us for your trip," Richmond said after a prolonged silence.

Lexa raised her brows. "Really? Wow, it must have been another royal couple who instructed me to go to Libya next week for Service Day. My apologies."

"Look, I know that you don't want to and Jaha had no right to make the decision for you, but you gotta admit he was right in that the optics could be –"

"The optics," Lexa scoffed, shaking her head with a sardonic smile.

"What? What do you have to say?" the king demanded, seeming like he was about to lose his cool at her behavior.

Lexa clenched and unclenched her fists, one of them almost crushing the apple that she had forgotten about. She looked to her siblings, remaining longer on Lincoln, who had a disappointed expression on his face as he eyed their parents. Yeah, he would, because he was there throughout the whole thing – from getting on the chopper to watching her wake up at the family hospital.

"Remember eight months ago, when you guys went to one of my physical therapy sessions, and I told you I wanted to something about veteran affairs?" she asked, quietly and without the vigor from before.

The king narrowed his eyes, seemingly still confused as to where she was going. But the queen definitely remembered, judging by the sigh she heaved and the way she closed her eyes in pain.

"Do you remember what you promised me?"

It took awhile, but it finally got to her father as he sucked in a breath and closed his eyes as well. He placed a hand on his forehead, averting his angry eyes from her and turning his disbelieving gaze to his wife.

Eight months might sound like a long time, but it wasn't for her. To her, when the nightmares still recurred and loud noises still had her jumping, it felt only like yesterday. Her leg might be aching now, but it was nothing compared to then, when every step seemed to take every ounce of energy she had pent up over eight hours of sleep.

And Lexa was never one to forget promises, especially when they hinged on her dignity and integrity. Especially when her parents made them. _They_ were the ones who taught her the gravity of making promises and the importance of keeping them.

"I told you that my work is _my_ work. I don't need people knowing about it. I don't want to politicize it. I certainly don't want it to be a PR program. I just want to help _people_. That's all I've ever wanted to do," Lexa said.

"You have to remember you're a princess –"

"I _never_ asked for that!" Lexa almost screamed, but her loud voice was enough to grab everyone's full attention, ranging from shock to disbelief. She sighed heavily and ran her hands through her hair. "I know this is my life. I know I grew up in this palace. I know I have responsibilities. I know you're my parents. And I love you, I do, but I have _never_ asked for this. I never asked for the attention. I never asked for the status or the title. I never wanted any of this."

For a long moment, her family just sat there while she stood on the other side of the room.

Palace staff surrounded them, wide-eyed and uncertain of the argument happening before them, not at all familiar with the animosity that they were witnessing – they were all used to the happy Woods family, acting like any other family if not for the crest imprinted on their clothes and the last name they carried.

Storme gingerly laid down her cutleries and propped her chin on her clasped hands as she carefully eyed her daughter, her expression a total mystery. And here was where Lexa finally saw the formidable queen that had even the parliament shaking in their seats – there was no telling what the queen would do or say next.

"Have you been feeling this way this whole time?" Storme asked, voice inquisitive and regal.

Lexa opened her mouth but closed it again as she found herself unable to properly answer the question. She shifted her gaze to one of the windows and saw the landscape of the palace, spread so widely and so stark in its majesty.

All her life, except for the several years she was away from home, she had woken to this view. It sprawled over acres, neatly trimmed and designed, symmetrical and all too terrifying. Every morning, she looked out the window and a sense of uncertainty would crawl up her nerves. She was born for this – she was intimidated by her birthright.

"I killed people," she finally said, low tone but loud enough for her family to hear. She turned back to them with a mirthless smile and shrugged. "I was a _good_ commander. I knew how to lead. I knew how to manage my soldiers. I knew how to delegate. I knew when to quit and when to advance. I was _good_ , and I have you to thank for that."

The princess looked down at the apple she had been holding, red and juicy, freshly plucked from the royal orchard.

"I just never asked for any of it."

She put down the apple, gave her family another glance, and walked out the double doors. Instead of heading down the hallway to her study, she made her way to the garage, all too fast for Gustus to catch up.

* * *

"I'm sorry you feel this way."

Lexa had her ass propped against the hood of the car, one hand shoved into the pocket of her leather jacket while the other held her phone to her ear. She had driven up a hill off the fifty sixth turn and had stopped at the edge of the cliff. It was past noon by the time she had arrived there, which only showed how long she had driven aimlessly.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," she told Anya.

"How long have you been keeping that to yourself?"

She shrugged, although she knew that her sister couldn't see it. "I don't know. I just – I don't think I'm aware that I've felt like that until today."

"You talked to your therapist about it?"

"Not yet."

Between the two of them hung a prolonged pause. She tilted her head back and allowed the heat of the afternoon sun to sear against her skin that had built an immunity against sunburns and allergies.

"What do you wanna do now?"

"I don't wanna go home."

Another pause, but this one was fully on Anya. "Forever?" she then asked, sounding almost timid if not for her persistent tone of nonchalance and toughness.

It was something Lexa had always failed to learn from her sister.

"No. No. I promised Mom I'll always come back."

"Well, thank god for that. I don't think I have the patience to find another maid of honor."

Lexa chuckled, appreciative of Anya's attempt to lighten the mood. "I thought therapy would work."

"Hey," Anya admonished, "you don't sneak out at night anymore. You're actually talking to me. You found yourself a hot girlfriend. I think you're doing pretty well. This is just a minor setback. Everybody has those." Lexa hummed. "I'm proud of you, little sis."

"I'm really sorry you have to see that."

"You've been so quiet through all the years you've been my little sister. I'm actually surprised that you could actually yell like that," Anya teased.

The younger princess clicked her tongue, rolling her eyes at Anya's habits of making fun of her, but that was what big sisters were for, she supposed, and she wouldn't have it any other way. Anya had always been her best friend – the one person that Lexa would sneak out with in the middle of the night just so they could put a blanket out in the back garden so they could talk through the night, pretending that their bodyguards did not exist.

Somehow, her deployment and the distance and the lack of equipment for proper phone calls had pulled them apart. And then she had brought so much baggage with her upon her return that she didn't even try anymore. She regretted that – pulling away from her best friend.

"You have five days until your trip. Do whatever you want. Have some drinks. Get laid. Maybe even go stripping. I don't care. You don't even have to go on that trip if you don't want to – I'll talk to Mom and Dad; I'm the second in line, not you."

Lexa felt her eyes well up at her sister's devotion to her, willing to risk her parents' impatience just so her little sister could have a break. She realized she had never truly showed Anya exactly how much she loved her.

"Just promise me one thing."

"What is it?"

"Come home to us," Anya requested.

Lexa offered a noise of affirmation. "I'll always come home, Anya."

* * *

There was something to be said about the fact that after the call with Anya, she had automatically climbed into her car and drove towards the familiar apartment building wherein she had spent a few nights. There was also something to be said about the fact that this car definitely had a tracker installed, but no one had come after her yet.

She made a note to thank Gustus for that, knowing for sure that her bodyguard must have had something to do with it. Her father needed to give him a raise, and maybe even build the man's wife a bigger house, considering the sacrifices she had to make for her husband to do his job.

The car she had snagged was one of the more inconspicuous ones, but it was still a palace car, and there was no way it wouldn't be noticed if she drove inside. So she parked by the sidewalk and sent a text, hoping the recipient would read it soon.

However, by a stroke of luck or something – she wouldn't want to question it – just as the text had been sent, she looked up to see Clarke sidling down the sidewalk, carrying a bag from the drugstore down the street. She watched as the blonde read the text and lift her head to locate the car, easily finding it as Lexa stuck her hand out the window to wave in her direction.

Clarke approached Lexa's side of the car, eyes roving the vehicle with an appreciative glint. She whistled as she knelt by the window, arms crossed over the edge and her chin propped over her arms.

"For some reason, the idea of you driving a car like this looks very sexy to me."

Lexa raised her brow. "Oh yeah?"

"I'm kidding." She lowered her brow. "You look sexy either way."

At that point, it would be a crime to not lean forward to take that very adorable face. Their awkward positioning mattered not a bit as her brain shut down while she kissed Clarke as thoroughly as she could without committing public indecency – she had read enough of the law to know that her ancestors had made it airtight so that not even royalty was exempt from conviction.

Once she had enough – there was never enough; she just needed air and time was slipping away – she leaned back and reached out with a hand to caress the blonde's cheek. Clarke sighed in enjoyment, leaning into the touch.

"What are you doing here?"

Lexa glanced back into the backseat and started to feel the nerves getting to her. Licking her lips, she returned her gaze to her girlfriend and tried a careless shrug. "Wanna slack off for a day or two and go on a camping trip with me?"

Clarke's face was frozen for a bit, like she couldn't quite process Lexa's words, and her eyebrows rose a little and her eyes blinked, like she didn't really believe Lexa's words.

"There's a place I used to go to with Lincoln and Anya. So much that my parents had to buy that plot of land so they can secure it and make sure their children don't get kidnapped because of who we are," she continued. "I was thinking we could go there. It'd be quiet. There's hot water. A great view of the city. Trees and flowers." She smiled a little. "And if I'm so lucky, you."

"What's going on, Lexa?"

It was a single question, but the princess could already feel the exhaustion sipping back in a rush, clouding her body and infecting her mind. She recalled the fights she had with her parents – both two days ago and today.

Curiously enough, these fights were more tasking than having to stand guard for more than ten hours because they had recently received reports of insurgents possibly storming the base.

"I'm just so tired, Clarke. Of the palace. The responsibilities. The title. This life," she muttered, her head resting against the headrest of her seat. "I need a break." She swallowed and shook her head. "You don't have to go with me if you don't want to. I understand you have a job. I'm going either way. It's just – I got all the stuff and I drove here automatically. I don't even know why."

She stared ahead, scared of even looking at Clarke to see the rejection that would be apparent on her face. This fear was the reason why she was surprised when the doctor extended her hand across the window and touched her cheek, gently pushing so Lexa could turn to her.

"Can I at least pack some of my stuff and make a call to the hospital first?"

Mouth dropping a little, Lexa could only nod. Slowly in the beginning, transitioning into an eager one.

Clarke's lips tugged into a beautiful smile and she stood up, but didn't walk away before she leaned in to kiss Lexa again. It wasn't much of anything. It was a kiss. It was a reassurance. It was the grounding that Lexa needed in that moment.

* * *

 **there will be angst. i promise. after this, there will be angst. it's like my brand. deal with it.**


	14. fortis et liber

**yes, i am alive. i have nothing else to say but that.**

 **i feel like i've been dragging the issue about kane and finn and their ineptness at being doctors for far too long, i thought it's time i deal with them.**

 **and camping!**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

There was no call. No email. Not even a courtesy message by the receptionist.

All she knew was that the morning after Lexa's visit, three men in suit and tie walked into the hospital and didn't even pause as they strode towards Marcus' office. Lexa had already left after a harrowing experience of Clarke putting her foot in her mouth and the former nearly having a panic attack in the on-call room, and the blonde had opted to get as much shuteye as possible before the next emergency called for her.

She certainly did not expect the emergency to come in the form of a pager by Marcus' assistant, saying that some people of the council were here, and they would like to speak with her alone. She didn't even need an extra thirty minutes to wake up, which was usually her habit.

Leaping to her feet from the cot immediately, she donned her coat, combed her fingers through her hair, and hurried out. It was probably psychology, but as she rushed down the hallways to the elevator bank, she felt like everyone was watching her, the spectators to a pending punishment – not that she was getting punished. If anything, she should be rewarded for her honesty.

Eventually, she found herself outside Marcus' office. Taking a few deep breaths, she braced herself, reminded herself that she wasn't the one in the wrong here, told herself that she was dating a princess and there was nothing more tasking than that, and rapped her fist thrice on the door.

And then she saw them – Marcus, the three strangers, and Finn, all of their expressions varying from curiosity to anger. There was no need to guess which expression belonged to whom.

They introduced themselves, though she couldn't quite hear them at all. All the while, the only thing she could think of was 'shit just got real'. It couldn't get realer than this – she had sent the email to report Marcus and Finn, the council had responded, they were here in this very room, and there were going to be real consequences from now on.

The council members brought her to the meeting room adjacent to Marcus' office and they spoke alone. They thanked her for the email, reassured her that they would look into it thoroughly, asked her to rehash everything she saw that night and her conversation with Marcus the day after, and told her they would reach out to her when they needed another statement.

And that was it. But as she walked out of the office and caught Marcus' eyes, she couldn't help the guilt from getting to her, even though she knew she had done the right thing.

* * *

Her mother was, as expected, _livid_ about it. Not only had her daughter put the career of the man she was regularly sleeping with in jeopardy, her chances of ever getting Finn Collins as a son-in-law was totally ruined.

Honestly, Clarke was more exhausted of Abby's relentless harping on that than the fact that her mother refused to see that Marcus and Finn were so far from the Hippocratic Oath they had taken during the beginning of their careers they might have been on Mars.

"Why didn't you talk to me first?" Abby demanded after having summoned Clarke to the old house the moment she got the information – god only knew how, the woman had connections in the industry.

"Because you would react this way," Clarke said back, as calmly as possible even though she could feel her blood boiling.

Today was not a good day to get on her nerves, though her mother had never really cared about that.

"His career –"

" _Patients_ , mom!" Clarke cut in aggressively, almost shaking in her core at her mother's audacity. "These are _lives_. _People_. Don't you care?"

"Marcus is extremely talented and he knows what he's doing in the OR. You just –"

"Oh yeah, he knows exactly what he's doing all right," Clarke interjected, sarcasm dripping intensely from her voice.

She threw her head back, one hand on her forehead and the other on her hip, as she felt a bout of headache coming in. Abby stood by the kitchen table, not hiding her glare as she wanted to show her daughter exactly how disappointed she was. Well, she wasn't the only one.

In this momentary silence, Clarke suddenly felt exhausted. She was not kidding when she said the last few days – hell, _weeks_ – had been long and arduous. There were times when she walked into the hospital and wanted to walk right back out, salary be damned. Everything had been adding up, slowly, gradually, one by one – Finn Collins, the complaint she lodged, the fear that seemed to tail her everywhere since she sent the email, Lexa's mental state, her impending departure back to the warzone.

Yes, Clarke had promised that something like a panic attack wouldn't scare her off, and it didn't, truly. She had seen a fair number of panic attacks in her life since she shipped off to some godforsaken town with limited medical supplies. And on any other day, she would have just brushed it off, but with everything else, Clarke just needed a break.

And now there was this: her mother's incessant need to be right and inability to see the reasoning behind her actions. She had gotten all too used to it, she had expected this outburst, and yet, she just wanted to go to sleep.

She sighed and shook her head, dipping her chin so she could look down at her feet.

"I became a doctor because of you, you know," she said. "You were my hero when I was a kid. I never blamed you for the late-night calls and the birthday absences. Every time you walked out the door, I would think that my mom's a hero and she's saving lives with her bare hands and _wow_ –" She lifted her eyes to meet Abby's "– I wanna be her someday. I wanna be a hero too." She licked her lips. "Who would have thought that the second I graduated med school, the second dad died, you would stop being a hero?"

Her mother had collapsed to a chair at the kitchen table, aghast at Clarke's revelation. The blonde didn't bother wiping away the tears trailing down her cheeks. She had never been so honest with Abby before; maybe that was because she had gotten tired of the woman's behavior or she had never been brave enough to confront her like that.

She had snapped today. Abby had seemed to lose all the integrity and dignity she used to carry before. Clarke couldn't take it.

"You used to be…the best mom when dad was around. You were the best. Sure, you always played the bad cop, but you were…awesome. What happened?"

For the first time in a long time, Abby Griffin was speechless. Her jaw had dropped and her eyes were misty, her hair a mess, but she couldn't utter a word.

Clarke breathed heavily and looked away from her mother. She strode towards the door and pulled on the coat she had hung in the closet, then she walked out without giving the woman another glance.

* * *

Sky had already turned dark by the time she had rounded the block that led to her apartment building. She wasn't in the mood to cook tonight and Raven and Octavia both had night shifts at the hospital, so she ended up picking up chips from the drugstore, figuring it to be her dinner.

The argument with her mother had echoed in her head the moment she walked out of the house and started walking back, not even bothering with a cab. A walk would do her some good, she figured. She couldn't help but think about her mother's face after she had poured everything out – for some reason, some sense of guilt started to grip at her every time she saw Abby's distraught expression.

She was only pulled out from her thoughts when her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. She got it out and instantly felt the heaviness dissipate a little when she saw the text. Then she looked up and saw the car.

And Lexa's words were like a miracle to her, letting her have exactly what she needed – a break and some time away. She wasn't even one for camping, having developed an aversion towards it after her father, the person who used to bring her to the woods all the time, had died, but she knew that she would go anywhere with the princess.

In the car was a cloud of silence lest for the music playing. Clarke would have asked, but she could see from Lexa's face – haggard, old, weary – that this was no time – the brunette would speak when the time came – so she settled for grabbing Lexa's hand and clasping it tightly on her lap. It wasn't like she didn't need this sense of quiet herself.

Thankfully enough, Lexa only glanced at her with a smile, and then tightened her grip on the blonde's hand, not taking it back.

Eventually, Clarke fell asleep, head lolling against the window, but hand still tightly gripping Lexa's.

* * *

Clarke sat on a log conveniently set by the campfire and watched as her girlfriend set up the tent a few feet away, hand in her palm and eyes nothing less than appreciative as they took in the brunette's muscles and fluidity. Clarke would have helped; she _did_ try to help, but she ended up almost tearing the thing apart that Lexa had only gently led her to the fire and sat her down with an adoringly admonishing stare.

"Listen, I haven't been camping in like…a decade or something," she had only defended, "and my dad was always the one setting up the tent."

"Weren't you an army doctor, Dr Griffin?"

"In an army hospital, Commander Woods."

Lexa had only hummed from where she was, expertly figuring one end to another of the tent, hammering in the nails, spreading out the tent, propping up the structure – all the while sweating so profusely that Clarke had to wonder if there was any way to brighten up the fire. She swallowed when Lexa had bent down in an accidentally delectable position, letting her have a good look at the cleavage that she had spent many nights cuddled up on.

The night had barely started. They had only been here for less than an hour. Clarke had already decided that this was the best outdoors experience she could ever have.

"You're staring," Lexa pointed out as she knelt by corner of the tent and attached it to the firm nail.

"Oh, I know."

The princess' hands never stopped working as she lifted her gaze to meet blue ones, smirking as she did it. The blonde's breath hitched momentarily as she saw the _blatant_ tease glinting in Lexa's eyes, emphasized only by the campfire crackling away before her.

Clarke narrowed her eyes, not looking away as the bottom half of her torso warmed up in an instance, unlike the gradual thawing out that had taken place a while ago. This was fast. Fiery. This was greed and lust and gluttony – three of the seven deadly sins coming together. Well, Clarke had never thought she would ever enjoy hell, but here she was.

Here they were.

The next fifteen minutes felt like hours, days, months, years, eternity. That one moment of eye contact had slowed time down to add pressure to the pleasurable torment that Clarke found herself in. She would very much like to stand up and grab on to Lexa to have her way with her, but she could also think of the many delicious and _comfortable_ manners she could have Lexa to herself once the tent was set up.

But as the minutes grew longer and the seconds ticked almost loudly on her watch, she almost ran out of patience. She almost wanted to screw it all up and just go absolutely feral. And almost like she could read her girlfriend's mind, Lexa stood up from the final corner of the tent and gestured proudly at the erect structure that would house them for then next two days – maybe even more, who knew?

Regardless.

The blonde jumped to her feet, the last time she had been so singularly focused was when she literally dug a bag of meth from a 90-year-old woman's stomach, and stalked towards Lexa, not even allowing the woman to verbally respond as she clashed their bodies together and attached their lips in an unmistakable heated kiss.

Because she was an understanding human being with the biggest heart, Lexa took it all in stride, returning the kiss heatedly as her arms encircled the blonde's waist and a leg strategically slotted between Clarke's thighs. The blonde didn't fight the obnoxious moan that escaped her throat at the sensation; she didn't bother to pretend to be decent either as she grinded against the muscled appendage.

Somehow, in between the mess of their limbs and the heat of their longing for one another, the great multitasker that was Lexa Woods managed to open the flap of the tent so they could both ungracefully topple inside. Somehow, Lexa also managed to flip them around so she could land on top of Clarke on the massive sleeping bag that the brunette had spontaneously purchased.

They had a moment of respite as the brunette hovered over the blonde, arms propped on either side of Clarke's head, eyes still dark as ever and chest heaving. Even in the dimness of the tent, Clarke swore Lexa looked so unbelievably breathtaking. She reached up to brush a strand of hair behind the brunette's ear.

"The crickets are gonna have a show tonight," she teased.

Lexa smirked. "Maybe they could learn a thing or two."

And that was the sort of confidence that had gotten Clarke so deep into the being that made up Lexa Woods. And dear god, these were atoms that she couldn't get enough of even if she tried.

* * *

"Your sister sounds nice."

"She has her moments."

Clarke was tired as hell, having not gotten any sleep in over a day on top of the sex marathon that brought her six orgasms in three hours, but she would gladly reward herself with panda eyes just so she could have another moment of looking at Lexa, relaxed and sleepy and so wonderfully naked.

Plus, it wasn't often that they got to talk like this, Clarke had come to realize. Their time together was always either unfairly cut short or laden with uncertainties and problems that shouldn't be plaguing a new couple. Despite the instinctual fear of a bear gobbling them up or starving to death in this forest, Clarke was starting to appreciate Lexa showing up at her apartment and randomly inviting her on this night out.

It was also unlikely that they would starve to death, Clarke rationalized, given that this was an old camping ground kept up by the royal staff on a monthly basis and there was hot shower. They would probably just accidentally plant some rice or something just to make sure their employers did not accidentally hunger in nature.

"Are you gonna listen to her?" she asked, finding her fingers inadvertently tracing down Lexa's tattoos on her back.

It was just natural. Her body just naturally responded to Lexa's, almost Pavlovian. Honestly, she should be awarded for the time when they were still hovering over the line that would mark permanent change when crossed. She admired herself for the amount of self-control she had in not pouncing Lexa the second they met again at the park.

Then again, Gustus had been there, hovering, quietly watching, judging in disapproval. But as Clarke watched the goosebumps rise across the marred skin that had seen and came back from war, she realized it probably would have been worth it to have the burly bodyguard arrest her for indecency.

"It does sound tempting, doesn't it?" Lexa turned her head so she could face Clarke, though still on her stomach and arms still hugged tightly around the pillow.

Clarke had stopped herself from wondering where Lexa had gotten these supplies or how often the royal family came out here to warrant all this ready supply of stuff.

"Hanging out in the woods with your hot doctor girlfriend for five days or more? Sounds exciting," she responded, smiling in mirror of Lexa's lazy but delighted grin. "I have collected quite a number of days off, what with the always being on call and going back to work even when I should have been relaxing. I'm set, babe."

"The last time I was irresponsible, I signed up for the army."

Clarke blinked, fingers stopped their exploration. Then she had no choice but to chuckle, leaning down to capture the brunette's lips in a chaste and adoring kiss. "I think we need to talk about your definition of irresponsibility before you go and talk about it," she whispered.

Lexa hummed in pleasure and only deigned to get out of her lazy position to chase Clarke's retreating lips, so much so that she pushed Clarke on her back and hovered on top of her again – and despite the exhaustion eating away at the doctor's bones, she couldn't help the thrum that overtook her body in expectation of what was coming next.

"Why don't you teach me about irresponsibility but with less words?" Lexa murmured before she took the words right out of Clarke's mouth.

* * *

In the late hours of the morning, with noon threatening upon them, the princess led the doctor a few yards away, where they were confronted with a small cabin consisting of one small bedroom, one bathroom, one simple kitchen, and a small parlor.

Befittingly, Clarke was not too happy about the new discovery, especially when she had barely woken up and hadn't had her coffee yet.

"Are you telling me I spent almost an hour watching you pitch a tent when we could have been staying in this very comfortable cabin?" she complained, stomping up the patio and crossing the threshold into the cabin. "You're a cruel, cruel person."

"Admit it, you liked it," Lexa teased as she tailed after the blonde.

Clarke, for some reason even she herself didn't know, found herself successfully locating a kettle, two cups, two spoons, and fresh coffee grounds from the cabinets she randomly opened. She got the kettle running and pointed a finger at her girlfriend, pouting.

"Do not talk to me until I've had a warm shower. And I expect to see the coffee done when I come out."

"Are you ordering a princess around?"

For the first time since she woke up, Clarke threw the brunette a teasing smile. "Admit it, you like it," she echoed before closing the bathroom door behind her.

Sure enough, she stepped out of the shower with the sweet smell of warm and fresh coffee in a pot and eggs and bacon sizzling on the stove. Clarke decidedly told Lexa that they would be spending their nights in the cabin despite how much they had enjoyed their night in the tent and how much time Lexa had invested in setting it up, sparing no room for argument.

They packed up the stuff and carried all the necessities into the cabin after breakfast. Then they sat on the couch, and Clarke finally decided it was time to tell Lexa everything.

It was only fair after having the princess be so candid with her from the moment they met. And Clarke had been dying to tell someone about it, and she couldn't tell Raven and Octavia because they were hospital staff and there was a clause about that stuff. Plus, investigation was now underway, nothing Lexa could do about it with her position of power anymore.

"You _what_?"

Or maybe not.

"He _what_?"

Oh shit.

She stared, wide-eyed, at her girlfriend, a little uncertain about her next step or how to deal with a princess who seemed livid but was still enough on the couch to perhaps not warrant an outward reaction. Clarke was also certain that she had told the whole story, so there wasn't much exposition she could do to answer Lexa's questions.

Scratching her head, she tilted her head and waited with bated breath for Lexa's next move. The princess sat straight like a princess should, but her eyes were wild and her mouth was doing all kinds of gymnastics movements that Clarke, inappropriately, thought would work wonders in bed.

"You reported them."

"Yes."

"The council is investigating them."

"Yes."

"And you didn't think to _tell_ me?" Lexa finally exclaimed, voice rising a few levels in volume.

Clarke forced herself to not growl back, understanding where her girlfriend was coming from. She tucked her fingers in her hair and tried to be as nonchalant as possible when she shrugged. "There was a lot going on with you."

Lexa swung around, gob-smacked, and there Clarke went again, running her mouth off with words she didn't mean. God, it must be something with the brunette that did these things to the doctor. She was usually a very rational person, thoughtful and clever.

"Okay, I didn't –" She stood up and put up two placating hands before running those hands through her hair. "You remember when Collins threatened me at the maze and you threatened him right back?" Lexa nodded, frowning in confusion. "You remember how you threatened him?"

The process of remembering took some time, but when it actually came, Clarke could see the understanding dawning upon the brunette's face – well, that was easy. Lexa covered her mouth with a hand as she thought about it, shaking her head at herself.

"Hey, it was hot, remember?" Clarke reminded her before she went down a spiral of self-flagellation again, like she was prone to do. Then she shrugged. "But this was a more…delicate situation, and I needed to deal with it more delicately. I couldn't just…risk some big powers coming in to interfere just because I'm dating a big power."

"You weren't dating me then."

Clarke threw Lexa an unimpressed look. "Don't pretend we weren't going somewhere this whole time. I'm protective over you. You are _fucking_ soft towards me."

"I am not –"

"Hey, remember when you tied my shoelaces the _second_ time we met, which was _six months_ after the first time we met?"

The princess blinked, taken aback by the doctor's interruption. Then she pointed a finger in Clarke's direction, mouth shut and placated. She obediently shuffled over to the couch when Clarke motioned her over, sitting down and letting Clarke tangle the two of them together in ways that Lexa imagined would be complicated to unravel later, but that wasn't the point.

"You are wonderful. And I am lucky. But sometimes, I just have to do things on my own," she whispered.

Lexa nodded gingerly. "I can see how my interference could possibly risk your career too."

Clarke smiled and leaned in for an eskimo kiss, which Lexa happily accepted. "I knew you were a smart cookie."

Rolling her eyes, the brunette tilted her head at Clarke. "Anything else you're keeping from me?" she asked, voice void of all signs of displeasure, just anticipation and impatience.

"Not that I can think of. Anything else _you're_ keeping from me?"

"Not that I can think of."

* * *

The next afternoon, after a hearty lunch and the rain had subsided, she and Lexa got dressed for the hike that Lexa had been so excited about the night before.

Clarke, on the other hand, couldn't see what was so great about climbing up an inclining hill that could easily kill her if she had any heart issues. And the more steps she took, the steeper the hill looked, the more she hated outdoor activities. How could she end up dating someone so goddamn _active_? Someone with a bum leg, no less.

"Fifteen minutes more."

"You said that fifteen minutes ago," Clarke panted.

"I'm being serious this time."

Clarke glanced up from where she was nearly dying and couldn't even find it in her exhausted system to appreciate the way Lexa's ass looked in those pants. She shook her head at the impossibility and yet reality of the woman who seemed unfazed at the climb, using the cane wisely.

"This is ridiculous," she said between heavy breaths, climbing the steps each at a time.

"What is?"

"You're fucking disabled!" she exclaimed.

Lexa released a breath of laughter. She stopped her climb, turned around, and waited for Clarke to reach her. It took the blonde some time, but she did it. When she was finally chest to chest with the brunette, she released a small whoop, waving her hand lethargically in the air.

"Hey," Lexa called for her attention, which Clarke naturally gave her. "I love you," the brunette declared after a long moment of looking at Clarke with that smile of hers, so softly that Clarke almost thought she had misheard the woman.

And then, without waiting for a proper response, Lexa turned back around and continued climbing, leaving Clarke gaping at her in the dust.

"Wait, what?" she said to herself. "Wait, Lexa! What? Lexa!"

* * *

 **i was very tempted to end it here, but i really should wrap up both their parental issues and maybe have lexa heal a little more from her ptsd before putting a period to this entire fic.**


	15. semper fortis

**i have no excuse. and i know you won't forgive me for this chapter either.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

Growing up, Lexa was ingrained with two lessons by her parents. These two pieces of advice walked, ran, lost, fought, and went to war with her. People usually forgot their parents' advices, and she was one of those. She couldn't really say if she could recall all the advices that her parents had imparted upon her, but for some reason, she remembered this two since the moment she heard them.

"You have the opportunity to make a difference in the world and in yourself. Remember your responsibilities, and make your day meaningful," Queen Storme had told her the night before she was supposed to ship out to her first posting and leave her family behind for the longest time she had ever been apart from them.

"All you have to do is put on your running shoes and let the front door shut behind you," King Richmond had said when he woke her up in the middle of the night on her 14th birthday and drove her out to another town so she could have a chance to visit the house her great-grandfather had died in – of course, he did tell his wife first.

Well.

She made a difference. She tried. She came out and became the first out and proud lesbian princess ever. She participated in the LGBTQ+ movements locally and overseas, put her name out there, and let media run its course. She enlisted and went to war. She almost died and came back with a bum leg. She kind of broke protocol and got herself a meeting with the Veterans' Agency and Defense Department to run her own program. She fell in love.

The only caveat she had with all the things she had done was the one promise she had ever asked from her parents: avoid politicizing her work and refrain from sensationalizing her. And…that caveat was broken the second they agreed with Jaha and basically commanded her to get on a plane and go to Libya.

So then, she put on her running shoes, the front door closed behind her with a loud bang, and she ran. Far away from the palace. Far away from the city. To an isolated campsite with a woman she had fallen in love with, irrevocably and deeply. Lexa _would_ go to war for Clarke Griffin, she decided, every second she looked at the blonde and rediscovered how fortunate she was to have even met someone as understanding and intelligent as the doctor.

Even though the doctor had yet to tell her she loved her back. Not that Lexa minded. Okay, Lexa minded a bit, but as a soldier, she had learnt patience and everything that came with it. She wasn't going to rush Clarke into anything – hell, if Clarke realized she didn't love Lexa as much as she did her and wanted to break up, Lexa would do it in a heartbeat.

She loved Clarke enough to be willing to give her anything, even at the cost of her own heart.

"Didn't I tell you that you can stay away for as long as you want on the condition that you come back?" Anya asked her as they sat inside the limousine, watching as the engineers ticked things off their checklist while investigating the jet. Gustus had already gone on to do the security checklist.

"And I came back."

"Just in time for the trip that you were so hellbent against going."

Lexa kept her eyes closed, head tilted back against the headrest. She had only just left Clarke's apartment last night, but if there a way to pack Clarke into a bag and bring her to Libya without risking her life, the princess would do it in a heartbeat.

Technically, she hadn't lied to Clarke; she had only omitted certain aspects of the trip to Libya, like the fact that a majority of it was a warzone and she was flying to the combined base of the US and Polis. And any soldier knew that if it was a US base, then there was a 50% chance that anyone would get blown to smithereens.

"I remembered that I'm a princess," Lexa faintly muttered.

Anya hummed. "I'm convincing dad to fire Jaha."

Lexa's eyes opened and she shot up straight, almost knocking her head on the roof of the limo. "You can't." Her sister was in the same position she had been in, head against the headrest and eyes closed, almost serene. "Anya, you _can't_. He's the _king_. He, more than anyone, has a responsibility to uphold the law of the land, and the law says no member of the royalty is allowed to interfere in the structure of the ministerial makeup. You can't ask –"

"Jesus, Lexa, I _know_. I'm the one with the law degree here," Anya snapped, opening her eyes as well, scowling. "You seem very defensive of our father's kingship for someone who's very pissed at him," she remarked with a cocked eyebrow.

"I don't wanna hear it."

"Lexa –"

"They broke their promise."

"I know."

"And I still can't forgive them for that. For always reminding me of my so-called birthright. For thinking that I will always be strong and relenting just because I never complain about the household and barely ever interfere in family stuff or, hell, governmental issues."

"I know."

"Mom _specifically_ asked me if I wanted to go back and I _specifically_ told her that no, I do not want to go back. For the first time since I've come back, I don't want to go back. I want to stay here. With you. With them. With Clarke. With the people I love."

"I know."

"But I –" Lexa sighed, suddenly finding herself lost for words. She shifted her gaze over to the jet and saw the head engineer heading their way with a polite smile on his face. She missed Clarke. "He's dad and she's mom," she finally relented, her hand reaching for the handle and opening it, smoothening her face in an instance, like a royal should do. She stepped out before Anya could respond and shook the engineer's head. "Thank you very much, sir," she greeted with a polite smile of her own.

The engineer chuckled nervously and gulped, shaking her hand almost too vigorously, but she let him anyway. "It was my pleasure, Your Highness," he replied. "All the best and have a safe trip, Your Highness."

"Thank you, sir." She withdrew her hand back as swiftly and smoothly as she could, just as practiced, because there were always overeager people wanting to meet the royals. The only one who hadn't seemed overeager to meet her was the doctor who saved her life.

As soon as the engineer stepped away, Anya sidled up next to her, greeting the engineer herself. As the third in line for the throne, Lexa had the least obligation to serve and be courteous, but she did it anyway, because she was raised to be good and responsible. As first in line, Anya was the one who had the most metaphoric weight on her shoulders. Even when she wasn't in the mood for it, the public deserved it.

Lexa would never pretend that her sister had it easier in being born into this royal family. Sometimes, it was fortune. Sometimes, it was just…because.

They made their way to the jet, the noise getting louder and louder as distance decreased. Just before it would get unbearably loud – Lexa had learnt to adjust from her time as a soldier and the amount of times she had to board a lousy military aircraft – she stopped in her tracks, alongside her sister.

"Take care of Aden and Lincoln," she pleaded.

"Not our parents?"

Lexa heaved an exaggeratedly exhausted sigh, shrugging. "If you have to."

Anya chuckled, almost inaudible in the strong winds and the jet engines. She extended her arms and wrapped them around her sister, a hug she accepted willingly. "What about Clarke?" Anya asked in her ear, her arms unrelenting around her younger sister.

The brunette's heart leaped a little at the mention of her girlfriend. One day, soon, she would bring Clarke to meet her family, if the blonde ever wanted that. "She can take care of herself." She tightened her own arms as well. "If anything happens –"

"Nothing's going to happen. It's a diplomatic trip."

Lexa could easily list off the number of people who had either gotten injured or actually died from diplomatic missions, most of them in places much safer than Libya, but she figured Anya would probably have a better grasp on the number than she did. So, instead, she just hummed and stepped back to look at the other woman.

Maybe it was the look on her face, a little too serious and a little too concerned, because Anya just relented with a sigh. "I'll make sure everyone's taken care of, even Clarke."

"Thank you."

"Don't think I don't know that you have a will written," Anya commented, throwing her a glare.

Lexa shrugged and took a few more steps back, slowly but surely. "You know I like to be prepared," she said as the noise inserted more barriers between them.

"How much do I get?"

"I'll have to die for you to find out."

"That is not funny!"

Forcing a grin on her face, Lexa lifted her arm in a nonchalant wave before spinning around to complete the short trek to the jet. She nodded at all the troops who were lined up at the stairs to welcome her, finding herself oddly missing her own time as one of these troops, dressed to the nines in her uniform, saluting her father.

Once upon a time, she forgot her roots by pretending to be humble, a mere soldier fighting for her country. At the end of the day, there was no escaping the fact that she was a princess, a member of the royal family, a person who these soldiers were supposed to protect with their lives and blood. She was a woman with the weight of a country on her shoulders.

When she had reached the top of the stairs, she turned back around and saluted – to the soldiers and to the heir to the Polisian throne. Her sister, who had never been to the warzone or even knew the slightest about military customaries, saluted back. It was wobbly and with the wrong hand, but she tried. Lexa smiled and went inside the body of the jet, making her way to one of the comfortable seats and collapsing in it.

Her phone buzzed and she held up a finger to the pilot who had come out of the cockpit.

"Hey," she greeted with a natural smile on her face.

"Oh good, you haven't taken off yet," Clarke said with audible relief in her voice.

"I'm about to." The brunette looked outside the window to find the limo driving away and the soldiers dispersing. She didn't know what she wanted more – to be back in the limo or chatting with the soldiers. "What's up?" she asked.

"I love you."

Lexa's heart stopped. She blinked owlishly at the pilot, who was still hovering by the cockpit entrance, a little caught off guard by the princess staring at him. Her hand tightened on the armrest of her seat. She knew what she wanted more than anything now: to be back in the limo and driving to the nondescript apartment building she had grown to love.

"I'm sorry it took me so long. It's just – I'm not really used to being loved by royalty."

Lexa raised her brow, hearing the evident nervousness clouding Clarke's voice. "Do many royalties fall in love with you?" she said, low enough for the pilot to not hear her words. When she heard Clarke click her tongue and huff through the phone, she knew she'd succeeded. "Only took you three days," she teased.

"You're a terrible human being."

"But you love me anyway?" She couldn't help the hint of insecurity sneaking into her voice as she said that. The last time someone said she'd loved her, she fled at the first sign of trouble. Lexa had learned her lesson.

There was a moment of silence, as they were both left pondering. One was stuck in a corporate situation with the law, the other had duties she couldn't shirk unless she wanted to create a constitutional crisis. Falling in love was difficult – her father was right in that regard. But then again, she had also seen the way her parents acted around one another. So maybe falling in love wasn't that difficult. Lexa just had to learn the ropes.

"I don't think there's any way for me to not," Clarke said softly, _lovingly_.

Lexa didn't think she had ever grinned so big, she was so sure she was scaring the pilot. "You know I'm going to eat you up when I get back, right?"

This time, Clarke's voice turned so husky that Lexa got goosebumps. "I wouldn't want it any other way." Lexa sucked in a sharp breath, eliciting a laugh from the doctor. "I should let you go. Royalties should always be punctual. I love you."

Yeah, that sounded amazing. Warm as fuck. Lexa was eager to just jump off the jet and hail a cab so she could eat Clarke up right away.

"I love you too."

That would have to wait. Service Day would pass quickly.

* * *

The base was in a different location, next to a bigger province than the ones she'd been to, packed and equipped. She supposed that was the thing about having a government that was willing to dispense more money into its defense than actually help the people.

But Libya was Libya – it was home to her for at least one year and a half. Apart from the constant paranoia and the IED that could have killed her, she loved Libya. It was, by all means, a beautiful place. The people were friendly and kind once they'd learned that she understood and could speak Libyan Arabic. So many times while she had been stationed here, she had been graced with soup and local delicacies on special occasions. When it was her turn to do the patrols, she would always spare at least half an hour to play some soccer with the kids.

The only thing that these Libyans asked of the foreigners with the guns and the tanks on their lands was to not aggravate them and pointlessly threaten them. When Lexa was leading her soldiers at the time, she had made sure to explain their intentions at all times so they could keep safe in case of any unwarranted irritation with the insurgents.

That was when she was still a soldier, a commander with her own troops.

Now, she was simply a princess visiting a base shared between her countrymen and Americans. She didn't have any authority over the Americans and only a marginal influence over Polisian soldiers. She landed in a nearby airstrip in Libya and was greeted by an array of soldiers, Polisian and Americans alike – and she wasn't sure if she liked it.

The Polisians were fine. They knew her from her time as a commander, most of them she'd even been in the same infantry with. Since before her retirement, they'd already built a camaraderie that would remain forever, because they were soldiers and no one understood them like each other.

It was the Americans that bothered her. Of course, they were larger with better artillery and improved equipment that Polis could only dream of achieving, but they had it all at the price of something much bigger, something that her father would never even deem to sacrifice. Except these soldiers didn't seem to realize that. Somehow, their nationality had seemed to give them a license to be…smug and a little unhinged.

Lexa's gaze stayed focused on the American squad making its patrol around a village to the east of the base, grimacing all the way as the soldiers brashly knocked the butts of their rifles against doors and barked their orders in English even though they knew _fully well_ that these people didn't understand a smidgeon of English. A big part of her wanted to intervene, but sovereignty and duty stopped her from doing so.

"They're animals," the Polisian staff sergeant told her, grimacing himself as well. "I understand the Prime Minister had no choice but to accommodate the Americans on the same base as us because we have need of their equipment. But they are animals."

"We are what we are," Lexa responded quietly.

* * *

"Well, this is a surprise."

Lexa slowly but surely drifted away from the chow hall to get a piece of quiet, her phone to her ear. "I told you I'd call you."

Clarke hummed. "Yeah, but you're in Libya, and I remember how bad the signal can get there."

"Oh, you have no idea."

The princess had tried to wave her phone in the air like a lunatic for fifteen minutes to try to get even half a bar. When that didn't happen, she had to approach the staff sergeant and asked whether she could borrow a SAT phone for ten minutes, just so she could hear the voice of the love of her life – of course, that last part she didn't tell him, although he obviously knew from the look in his eyes when he handed the device over.

"We only have fifteen minutes to talk before I have to return the SAT phone to the sergeant," she told her girlfriend regrettably.

"That's better than nothing," Clarke lamented. "It's maddening how much I miss you."

"Should I be flattered?"

"No, you should tell me you miss me more."

The brunette chuckled and threw a thumb up at a passing soldier, who saluted her in return and went into the chow hall for his own meal. She had come out of the chow hall as soon as the SAT phone finally made a connection and she heard Clarke's voice, food half eaten and most likely growing cold in her wake.

"I miss you a lot more than you know," she whispered.

"No hot muscly girls over there to attract your attention?"

Lexa shook her head, though she knew Clarke wouldn't be able to see her movement anyway. "There's some, but I can't keep this pretty blonde doctor off my mind. Any idea how to fix that?"

"No fix. Keep her in your mind."

Lexa hummed and glanced up at the barely there moon. "I think I will."

* * *

Polis might make a big deal out of Service Day. There was fanfare and great speeches from the Prime Minister and the King. Some people gathered in bars to drink to their loved ones stationed overseas, while some visited cemeteries to remember their service. But the soldiers, especially those stationed overseas, would wake up in the morning, clasped each other's forearm with a laugh, and go on.

Just as what Lexa had woken up to today. She walked out of her specially set up tent to see the Polisians passing each other, clasping forearms and laughing with each other, and heading to their tasks next. To Lexa, this was what Service Day was about – a day for the soldiers to be able to praise each other without ego getting in the way, to understand one's own contribution without getting their egos inflated.

This time, it was a little different, because a princess was in their midst. As soon as they were ready, the Polisian soldiers marched up in a uniform line, and Lexa clasped each of their forearm with a sincere smile. She had seen firsthand their contributions to Polis and sometimes even the world when they rebelled against some of the superpowers to keep their dignities intact.

After having clasped each of their forearm, Lexa volunteered to get changed and head out to another village with the patrol team, along with Gustus, of course. Not as a commander, but a private. She wasn't even carrying a rifle, just a handgun. Look, she may have found roots back home with her family and a person she was determined to stay with for the rest of her life, but she would be lying if she said she didn't miss this kind of teamwork in the least.

"Any chance you'll ever come back into the fray, Your Highness?" the staff sergeant asked with a teasing grin.

Lexa chuckled and patted the cane next to her with a bittersweet smile. "Afraid not, sergeant." She looked out the window at the sandy dunes and unrefined pavements. "Besides, I've got a girl back home now."

All the other soldiers in the vehicle looked at her, save for the driver, but Lexa could tell that she was intrigued by the way her eyes kept drifting to the rearview mirror. Oh well, if there was anyone to tell, it was these people. No one kept secrets better than soldiers, who had grown prone to overhearing state secrets and keeping their mouths shut.

"Alright, what do you wanna know?" she said after a sigh, smiling as she voiced the question.

And then, like the messy people they were, all of the occupants in the vehicle immediately bombarded her with mountains of questions, overlapping over one another with no regard for uniformity and manners. These were military men, after all. She wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

Libya was dangerous, especially where war torn villages and ravaged military bases were concerned. Lexa boarded the plane knowing this, which was the reason why she had chosen to omit some information from her siblings and her girlfriend when they had talked about her trip. She was used to the danger, the constant need to look over your shoulders and be extra aware of where your feet went – they didn't.

But despite having already fully grasped the volatility of a warzone, she was, for the first time, rather optimistic. And that optimism came to bite her in the ass ten minutes into their arrival at the village, teaching her _loudly_ and _violently_ that optimism did not have any place when they were wearing fatigues and carrying rifles into territories known for hidden insurgents.

She knelt behind a weak ledge with the staff sergeant, Gustus, and one other private; the rest had gone to hide out on their own. The ledge was weak and wouldn't hold for long, as rapid bullets fired over their heads and whizzed into the houses, tearing apart debris and bricks as they went. Lexa would have cared, but like any other soldier, she had to save her own hide first; she wouldn't be useful to anyone dead. God, she was so glad Polis had outlawed military grade weapons.

She rested back against the ledge, closing her eyes at the roaring ache tearing up her leg. Her cane had long been abandoned the moment they'd noticed the unusual quietness of the village and the familiarity of it all – Lexa had experienced something of the sort before one of her comrades had stepped on an IED and blew himself up until kingdom come. And yet, the PTSD didn't come. Her heart was, for once, calm and collected. Her brain was not firing off in every direction with bright colors. Despite the gunfire and the chaotic situation they had found themselves in, she was...cool.

Maybe it was the heat of the moment. Maybe she had mistook her clinging to this life. Regardless, she appreciated the reprieve until this came to an end. She could get a PTSD attack after. God, Niylah would probably lose her composure after realizing what happened here.

"Your Highness –"

"There are literally insurgents trying to blow us all to smithereens right now. I think we're well-past titles," she quipped, smiling at herself for her brazenness. She willed herself through the pain, thinking that Clarke would kill her by the time she returned if she didn't die here, and glanced at the staff sergeant. "What's the plan, sergeant?"

He blinked at her for a moment before a reluctant smile tripped across his expression. "You're the commander here, Commander," he remarked.

She huffed with a laugh. This was unbelievably thrilling, and yet heavy on her shoulders. While running for her life just now, Lexa had managed to clock the positions of the insurgents and estimate the gunfire compared to theirs. They were largely outnumbered, especially considering the possibilities of the insurgents having installed IEDs before the Polisian force's arrival.

She was the Commander.

Looking to Gustus as she reloaded the rifle she had picked up earlier when a fellow soldier went down, she offered a loaded smile. "Tell Clarke I'm sorry, alright?" she said.

He shook his head gruffly. "Tell her yourself, Your Highness."

She shrugged and repositioned herself to face the ledge, ready to open fire at any time. "Didn't you hear? I'm the Commander."

He huffed, totally unhappy with the situation. Who would? They came here with the intention of celebrating Service Day, but here they were, having no choice but to kill more misdirected kids on Service Day. Life had its irony.

"But if I don't, promise me you'll tell her," she said, sobering up as she thought about the pretty blonde doctor back home.

He glared at her, mouth pursed under his thick beard. Without responding to her request, he shifted his position as well. That was as good a promise as any.

"Let's blow them up," he demanded lowly.

She laughed again. This was thrilling.

* * *

 **go ahead. flay me.**


	16. abyssus abyssum invocat

**here, catch! 4,000+ words worth of angst.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

"Excuse me, please explain."

Narrowing her eyes, Clarke took a pause in jotting down on her 60-year-old patient's chart to look up at her best friends, who had apparently decided to leave their posts to come barging into the ER. They were lucky it wasn't a busy day, not yet. She mirrored Raven's narrowed eyes and tilted her head.

"You're gonna have to elaborate," she said.

Octavia widened her eyes and leaned closer, jaw clenched and panic evident on her expression. "Tell me you didn't report Marcus Kane and Finn Collins to the council."

Clarke raised her brows, a little thankful that her best friend had opted for a lower volume. Still, she looked around her to see if there was anyone who'd overheard, but fortunately, the closest nurse was much too absorbed in a phone call with her uncle to care.

"No, everyone already knows – they're just too scared to ask you about it."

She sucked in a sharp breath and whipped around to look at them. Raven was nodding smugly while Octavia was just glaring at her. She gulped and collapsed into a random chair nearby, throwing her head back – a good show of professionalism, sure to increase patients' trust when they came in.

Well, not like she cared, now that everybody knew, she should probably expect a termination letter in her inbox soon. Maybe during her joblessness, she could get back into drawing while waiting for Lexa to come back and fully bank her. So much for doing things on her own.

"Oh, they adore you for it." Clarke sat upright. "Not everyone's totally blind, you know. They've been watching Finn and Kane do shady things for as long as they've been here; they're just too afraid to say anything because Finn has connections and Kane is the chief," Raven offered. She reached out and pinched Clarke's arm, eliciting a yelp, finally attracting the other nurse's attention, however brief. "Now explain!" she hissed.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to explain. You seem to know everything."

"No, not the Kane and Finn thing. We know that," Raven disputed, smacking her palms on the table repeatedly. "Explain how you just disappeared for _days_ after dropping a bombshell on the hospital and ignored our calls and basically became the worst friend on earth!"

"Oh, that."

"And what exactly is _that_?" Raven pointed out, leaning closer.

"Well..."

She trailed off, resting further against the counter and looking around again to see if there were any sneaky ears and eyes trying to get dirt on her. After all, they all knew about her part in Marcus and Finn's suspension, and it was no secret that there was still a rather big portion of her colleagues who had fallen under their charms, even her mother – and she didn't even work in this hospital.

Then when she was sure no one was out to get her, not yet, she thought about her absence for the past few days. The absolute bliss of it all. The absence of noise and unnecessary concerns. The greens and blues and sweat and curses. Lexa Woods, the Second Princess of Polis Kingdom, loving her. Those days at the campsite had been…some of the most wonderful, up there with the moment she came home for the first time since heading off to college and seeing her parents waiting for her on the doorstep.

It was beautiful. It was wonderful. It was something she wanted to keep to herself just a little bit longer.

"Hey, did you know Octavia's seeing Lincoln?" she diverted.

Octavia's eyes widened at her, a combination of glaring and panicking as she directed her gaze between the doctor and the tech. Clarke winced and shrugged unapologetically at her friend. Honestly, she had wanted to give the nurse more time to keep it to herself, but this was a dog-eat-dog world. Plus, it wasn't as if Octavia herself hadn't bombarded her at the beginning of her reunion with Lexa.

So, yeah, consider this payback or something. The bottom line was Clarke wasn't going to let her blissful memories go down the drain this fast, even if at the expense of Octavia getting attacked by Raven. She should consider herself lucky that Clarke hadn't chosen to overwhelm her the moment she saw her with the prince.

"Wait –"

"No."

"Lincoln, like the pr –"

"Okay, I'm leaving now." Octavia started retreating. She eyed Clarke, motioning with two fingers between her eyes and Clarke. "Clarke, I'm gonna get you back."

"Hey, no!" Raven started catching up with her, and Clarke hurried after them. There was no way she wasn't getting the juicy details. "No, I cannot be the only one – _what_?" The Latina shrieked, attracting the attention of everyone in the ER, including the incoming patients. Luckily enough, there were enough doctors here that Clarke wasn't exactly needed.

They chased after Octavia, despite how fast she was and how Raven was significantly slowed down by her bum leg and how Clarke absolutely despised exercising, into an on-call room, with Clarke locking the door behind them and blocking it so Octavia wouldn't escape again. She threw the nurse a meaningful look over Raven's shoulder.

"Spill," Raven demanded, crossing her arms.

Octavia groaned and settled onto the bed, knowing that she was in no place to escape this conversation. "Well, I – It's a very new thing." She groaned again when Raven and Clarke didn't say anything. "I met him when Princess Lexa came sneaking in looking for Clarke at Bellamy's shelter."

"Bellamy's –" The tech swung around – she had always surprised her friends with her agility despite the prosthetic. Truly a legend. She pulled out the chair and sat on it, glancing between her friends with disbelief. "How was I not there?"

"Well, because you are such a good influence on my brother, you'd managed to convince him to take a day off and do…things. Two-people, private things that I don't ever want to imagine my brother and my best friend in. Together. By the way," Octavia added, glowering now.

"Okay, and?"

"And Lincoln and I just…clicked. He is very handsome."

"I am well aware how handsome he is. He's the prince."

"Don't use that tone with me, young lady."

"You used that tone with me when you found out I'm boning your brother, _younger_ lady."

Octavia screwed her eyes shut and clapped her hands to her ears, shaking her head viciously and making a noise that sounded like a cat being strangled. "Oh god, _ew_ , stop. You promised no sordid details about you two, good fucking lord."

"Okay, so now what?"

It took awhile, but the nurse eventually lowered her hands and leaned back across the bed so she was lying against the wall. "Well, now we're just seeing each other. Discreetly. Seeing how it goes," she said with a shrug and a genuine smile on her face. "I mean, he…" she drifted off, looked into space, and then sighed _dreamily_.

Clarke and Raven shared a look, simultaneously happy for their friend and seeing an opportunity to tease her. The blonde cleared her throat and crossed her arms. "So what I'm hearing is you should be thanking me for this recent advancement in your love life," she remarked, smirking when Octavia came back into real life and quickly switched into defensive mode.

"Excuse me –"

"You wouldn't have met if it wasn't for Lexa going to the shelter to see _me_ ," she cut in, raising a brow challengingly. When Octavia relented with a sulk, Clarke chuckled and responded to Raven's fist bump cheekily. "So, yeah, you can thank me by buying dinner or something. I'm good with coffee on a good day."

"You're a terrible person. I can't believe you just outed me like that."

Clarke shrugged, feeling only slightly guilty. They were snapped out of their mock-glaring session when Raven suddenly released an ugly howl.

The doctor was half scared that someone would start knocking on the door, but given the trio's reputation around the hospital even though Clarke hadn't even been around for a year, she suspected that they could be dead in here and the rest of the hospital would still think they were up to no good.

And then Raven just stopped howling and collapsed back in the chair, with it tilting so far back that Clarke automatically moved forward just so she could have a slim chance of saving Raven from breaking her other leg if the chair really did collapse under the weight. Her friend seemed unaware of how close she was to being a total cripple, given that she had her eyes closed and her brows furrowed intensely.

"What is it, Raven?" Clarke asked, patient like a mother who _still_ had patience. She shared a look with Octavia when Raven started flinging her arms around. "Stop doing that. You're gonna fall and break your other leg."

"I cannot believe you two are dating _royalties_ while I'm stuck with a man with an irrational obsession with tacos," she complained.

Octavia snorted. "I certainly didn't encourage you to fall for my brother."

The Latina opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling. Eventually, the frown dissipated and her mouth stretched into a silly smile. Clarke couldn't help but smile at the way her friend's cheeks puffed up at the movement, but most importantly, she couldn't help but smile at watching her friend be in love.

"Nah, I don't regret a single thing," Raven said softly.

Clarke leaned back against the wall, thinking about her own girl herself. Look at them, three lovesick fools. If the whole hospital could see them like this.

* * *

Escaping to go camping with her princess girlfriend for days, apparently, did not mean life back home would just go on. As in, escaping to go camping with her princess girlfriend for days did not mean the investigation in Marcus and Finn would just move along without her.

Apparently, they were all waiting for her to come back and give her statement at the council headquarters. She was essentially the one person they were waiting for to get the ball rolling in getting witnesses and camera footages and yada yada. As if she hadn't already gotten the ball rolling by sending that email in the first place.

She felt like she should actually tell them in detail exactly _how stressful it had been_ for her to write the email and click on send _without telling anyone_ or even just chickening out. Maybe they would let her off the hook if they knew.

But hearing Lexa's voice helped – even though the veteran had sounded rough and tinny over the flimsy connection a SAT phone could provide.

That was essentially how she got back into the swing of things – the knowledge that her girlfriend would be back soon and spending time with her best friends, whom she had, regrettably, neglected since she and Lexa had made it official. Thankfully enough, they understood – after all, they had their own love lives to revel in.

And then – and then Octavia texted her just as Clarke was about to watch some news while there was some downtime in the ER. Octavia texted her, sounding solemn and serious, and asked her to meet _them_ in the on-call room they frequented. Them? Who's them? Clarke didn't know, but she made her way there anyway, thinking this was just Octavia being dramatic.

Only to realize it wasn't dramatic, because there was not one, but two royals standing in the on-call room, along with her two best friends. All of them with concerned looks on their faces. Clarke flimsily waved at Lincoln before shifting her attention to Princess Anya of Polis, Duchess of Warlington, eldest child of the Polis Royal Family, first in line to the throne.

"Um…" she drifted off, not sure what to do.

Look, the first time she met Lexa, she had her hands _literally_ deep inside the woman in a ratty operating room in Libya. The first time she met Lincoln, it was a discreet trip and he was too enamored with her best friend to really pay her any attention. No one had really taught her the protocol of meeting a royal for the first time under normal circumstances.

Not that she met a royal regularly, but there was a point.

"I curtsied," Raven tried to help.

Clarke widened her eyes, momentarily glancing at her, before turning back to the princess and starting to do the exact same, only to find herself stopped by two scrambling royals. She stood up straight, hardly getting used to one royal touching her, much less two.

"Save the curtsey for later," Anya brashly offered. She stepped back, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here. A little scared. A little concerned. A little angry. "I'm sure you know who I am." Clarke nodded numbly, casting pleading looks at her friends, who were looking everywhere but at her. "I told Lincoln to sneak me in here after learning the news. My parents wanted you to know too."

It wasn't that Clarke was stupid. She was an ER attending, for fuck's sake, and she heard through the grapevine that three other hospitals across Polis were still waiting for a chance to snatch her up. So yeah, she was fairly intelligent, if she might say so herself. And, yeah, maybe Lincoln and Anya's presences were already a hint, but people had also said that Clarke was well-versed in denial.

Just ask her mother; Abby Griffin would tell you all about how Clarke had refused to come home for two years after Jake had passed away, because she didn't want to look at the urn on the mantel and remember. Suddenly, _suddenly_ , Clarke found herself sympathizing with her mother back when she had first found out her husband was dying. And hell, she and Lexa weren't even married, for fuck's sake.

"Where –"

"We don't know."

"When –"

"She went out on a patrol with the guys there."

Clarke frowned, tilting her head. From what she remembered of her conversation with Lexa, her job was simply to show up, shake a few hands, and spend three days with them. She never mentioned anything about _patrolling_. How the hell was Lexa supposed to _patrol_ with a fucking cane?

As if she understood what Clarke was thinking, Anya nodded with a helpless shrug, a storm taking over her face. "Lexa's always done things that are out of our imagination. It's probably time you learn that you will occasionally find Lexa hanging on the wall like Peter Parker and not question it."

"This is not Spiderman –"

"I _know_ ," Anya said, firm and regal. Right, so this was the princess that Lexa had spent her whole life looking up to. "The fact remains that my sister had been attacked by insurgents in Libya and she's missing. Half the squad was reported dead. Our American counterparts are doing all they can to help us, but they're _Americans_. We've even issued a royal prerogative to send out a team to find her."

Clarke was pretty sure Anya wasn't supposed to tell her half these things, but she stood still, because Lexa was _missing_. But now, she understood exactly _why_ Lexa so idolized her sister. Because despite all the things that she had told the doctor, Anya never wavered. She was tall, straight-backed, and essentially too composed for someone who had a missing sister.

She could see where Lexa got some of her traits from. The duties of a royal. No, no, the duties of the _first-in-line_.

"I don't –"

Her knees felt so weak that she staggered back. And she would have fallen down if it wasn't for Anya quickly catching her by the elbows, holding her up and staring right into her eyes with a sort of tenacity that Clarke could recognize in Lexa's.

"All we can do now, the _only_ thing we can do now, is _hope_."

* * *

Hope.

Clarke had hoped. She'd hoped that Lexa would get better. She'd hoped that she would be able to be there for Lexa no matter what. She'd hoped that Gustus, someone who was important was Lexa, would warm up to her eventually. She'd hoped that Lexa would come back to her and they could grab more McDonald's and sit on the stupid bench.

She'd hoped. Those hopes hadn't exactly panned out.

Anya and Lincoln had left, with the former nodding at her curtly and the latter giving her a hug. Raven and Octavia had advised her to take a couple of days off.

Now, she was frantic, trying to save a guy's life after having been T-boned by a drunk driver at an intersection a few blocks down, pushing the thoughts of Lexa _missing_ to the back of her mind. Because, the thing was, there was no way she could go home now. Going home would mean…silence. Loneliness. _Lost_. She couldn't go home.

Her heart was _aching_ , but she let that slide. There was no thing to be done about her heart until she received more news. But right here, she could do something about this man's life, and maybe more later when she was done with him.

She just _wasn't_ going home. Not until she saw Lexa again.

* * *

She took out her phone and scrolled through her call history until she landed on the number of the SAT phone from which Lexa had called her.

She dialed it.

She got dial tone.

She dialed it again.

* * *

Coffee cup in hand, 48 hours into her extended shift, she strolled back into the building, ready to take on another case. Another life. Another distraction. Her feet came to a halt when she saw the woman standing by the nurse station in the ER, and _god_ , this was the last thing she needed.

She sighed, starting to take steps back out of the ER. However, Abby Griffin had a sense of these things, like a predator who just _knew_ her target was trying to run. Her mother turned and locked her sights on Clarke, eyes narrowing when she saw the blonde stopping mid-step. She raised her brows wordlessly. Clarke sighed again and scratched her eyebrow with her free hand before making her way to her mother.

"What do you want?"

"That's no way to talk to your mother."

"Mom," she said warningly, avoiding the woman's eyes.

Her mother went quiet. And in that reprieve, when the ER was not bustling with angry doctors and frantic nurses, Clarke realized how _tired_ she was. Her eyes were drooping and she had overclocked by twelve hours. Her entire body _sagged_ against the station. She wanted her mother to just leave her alone.

"Are you okay?" Abby asked, her steely tone quickly dissolving into a concerned one.

Clarke would lie, but she couldn't even find it in her to do that now. She shook her head, sipping at her coffee, which totally wasn't working as she was still _sagging_.

Look at her, being honest with her mother. Jake Griffin would be proud if heaven was real and he was really up there watching over them, as the father at the church had once told her. It was something that she had completely thought to be bullshit. But currently, she kind of wanted it to be real, because if worst came to worst, Lexa deserved to be up there more than anyone.

"What happened?" Abby pursued.

Clarke narrowed her eyes slightly, breathing in through her mouth. "How did you –" She gulped and looked down at her coffee cup. "What was it like when you found out Dad was dying?"

She heard her mother take in a sharp breath, unexpected and surprised. She still didn't dare to look at her mother, choosing to will the coffee cup to burn up right in front of her. She didn't know what she had expected when she had asked the question, but the shocked silence was probably among her expectations.

It wasn't that she thought Abby didn't love her father. She knew they were one of the rare ones – truly in love, _obsessed_ with one another even after two decades of marriage. If anything, Clarke had aspired to be like them when she fell in love – unwavering in their devotion for one another.

Perhaps it was because Abby had loved Jake a little _too much_ that when he died, a huge part of her died with him. The part of her that understood how to love another human being without caveats to go along with him. When that part of Abby died, the only other person in her life, Clarke, became collateral damage.

Since the moment she understood love and saw the very idea of it between her parents, she had always been curious. All these questions roaming around in her head; how two people could love each other this much, what it was like to be in love like them, where they found the effort to stay so devoted – it was only when she met and fell in love with Lexa that she started to understand what it was like.

This wasn't her forgiving her mother – they still had quite a long way to go, if they could even make the effort – but right at this moment, she just needed perspective, and her mother seemed to be the only one who could give it to her.

"Can we talk somewhere else?" Abby requested, and it had been a long time since Clarke had heard the woman so fragile and uncertain.

She nodded, and together, they made their way towards the nearest on-call room. She had been spending a lot of time in on-call rooms in the past 48 hours. She watched as her mother lock the door and gingerly sit down in a chair, gingerly playing with her fingers as she contemplated her next words. Both of them were a little too afraid to look at each other.

"I was there," Abby started, her fingers fidgeting more. Clarke blinked, finally looking up at her mother, kind of finding it unbelievable that she was actually being _candid_ for once. "Your dad asked me to join him, thinking it was just a fluke. I was very worried, because, you know, as a doctor, I had to consider all possibilities. And when Dr. Cartwig told us that it was…cancer, I remember –" Abby cleared her throat and looked up to the ceiling, blinking rapidly. "It felt like a nightmare coming true. Not even a _horror_ nightmare, you know. A nightmare where I would lose him," she said, her voice growing deeper with each word. She cleared her throat again. "Hell, _he_ had to hold me that night because I was crying so hard."

Clarke blinked rapidly to get rid of the tears as well. She swallowed, failing in swallowing down the clog that had been driven up her throat. Licking her lips, she clenched her fists together on her lap and asked, "How did you –"

"I didn't." Abby smiled sadly at her daughter and shrugged. "I just – I'm not religious, so I didn't pray. I just…worked. I pretty much took over Cartwig's desk and started thinking of trials and chemo and ridiculous ways to help him _as_ he got worse. And then one day, I came home, and he was napping on the couch, looking _ridiculously_ handsome; I remember thinking there's no one who can compete with him in terms of looks."

"He _was_ very handsome," Clarke tried, eliciting a shaky chuckle from her mother.

"And I guess that was the day I finally understood there was no helping. It's too late. He was _so tired_ , and he just wanted to spend time with his 'best girls'," Abby finger quoted with a fond smile. "So I put down all the work. I took indefinite time off. And I just…spent time with my husband. However long I could."

The blonde slowly nodded, grateful to have been offered this chance to understand her mother a little better, though not by a long shot. The thing was Abby could still find her husband and spend time with him in his last days. And she was just… _here_ , not knowing _anything_ or whether there would even be a body to bury.

She had seen far too much to know that there were a lot of times when empty caskets were buried because there were no actual bodies to be found. Clarke didn't want it to be that. Lexa had to be _whole_ , she _had_ to be.

She didn't know what to make of her mother telling her the story. At the moment, her heart was a little too faint and her brain was a little too muddled to understand the effect of those words. Did it help? Did it make things worse? She literally didn't know. She just wanted to sleep and wake up to find out it was all just a, like her mother had said, nightmare.

"I heard about the princess." Clarke's eyes snapped back to hers, widening. "Raven didn't tell me, don't worry." Abby hesitantly reached forward, but ended up taking her hand in hers anyway. A mother's warmth. "Call it mother's instinct."

And Clarke was too tired to even mock the woman now. A mother's warmth, even a distant mother, was enough to break down the dam and let the tears burst forth. She shook her head and whimpered weakly, allowing Abby to pull her forward and held her torso in her lap, shushing her while brushing her hair.

She couldn't hear what her mother was saying through the hiccups and sobs, but the touch and the familiar vibrations that used to lull her to sleep during the time when she believed in closet monsters were good enough…for now.

* * *

 **alright, see you in two months.**


	17. de profundis

**hah almost two months - i've understood my writing style so well.**

 **now read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

It wasn't the light. It wasn't the noise of mechanical objects and scuffle of feet. It wasn't the muffled whispers. It wasn't the echo of snores from several men. It wasn't the humming of a folklore music from a man to her right. It wasn't the fading effects of the painkillers that they must have had her hopped up on.

It was the smell. Damp and rotten. Metallic blood stinging her nostrils. The dust and gunpowder residue. They were sharp and invading – and she was all too familiar with these stenches to know that it meant nothing good. Hell, only more than six months ago, she was still half awake from the pain of her broken leg, and she spent the whole time being transported to the hospital smelling this stuff.

She wrinkled her nose and slowly but surely blinked her eyes open, expecting to find herself in a rundown hospital or something. A medical tent at least. But when she opened her eyes, what she saw were…sawdust, dilapidated interior of something like a dent, a fire surviving on a flimsy firewood pile, Gustus, the staff sergeant, and a private.

She blinked again, not really understanding.

"Welcome back, Commander," the staff sergeant – Ryder – greeted with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Gustus, having heard the staff sergeant's greeting, hurried over to her, basically scrambling out of his sleeping bag like an affectionate dog. He hovered over her, quiet but obviously concerned, judging by the deep frown on his face and the tightness tugging at his lips.

He was hesitant in touching her – he'd always been hesitant with touching anyone apart from his wife – but she smiled at him, if only to alleviate his concerns a little. The truth was her head was spinning and the ache in her leg was beginning to make itself known. Guess the painkillers had warded off and that was why she had woken up.

"Water?" he grunted. She made a noise of affirmation. And quickly, he had her sitting upright and handed her a half-empty bottle of water. "Drink," he ordered.

She smirked at his tone, but drank anyway. She was _parched_. Once the contents were completely downed, she shot him a confused look. "Where are we?"

"Further west of the village," Ryder offered. "SAT phone is down, so we haven't been able to contact the base in two days. You did a good job commanding, Commander, but we were largely outnumbered, as you could probably tell that day. And you suffered a concussion, so we didn't really have a choice but run…without the truck. And here we are."

"So we're –"

"Missing in action, basically. But hey, at least we're alive."

She nodded in agreement. "Right." Then she leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes.

Yes, at least they were alive, but _her family_. _Clarke_. God, they must have heard the news by now, and she couldn't imagine what they were going through now. Last time, at least she was sent to a hospital and her family knew where to find her. Now, literally _nobody_ had an inkling of where she was.

"We need to go," she decided, already pushing away the top flap of her sleeping bag to get out, only to be pushed back by Gustus after she had hissed sharply in pain. "Gus –"

"You're in no condition to walk," he grunted. "Until someone finds us – hopefully not the same group of insurgents – we're staying here. There's an oasis nearby so we don't have to worry about water. This house also has some food left to tide us over two or three more days."

"SAT phone's really not working?"

"Nada," Ryder said.

She wanted to argue and brave through the pain just to get back to base and get on the first plane out. She wanted to see Anya and Lincoln and – god forbid – her parents. She wanted to turn back time and stop herself from being so dutiful so she could have _stayed_ by Clarke's side and not end up in this godforsaken place.

Life was so against her even though she had done everything she could to go along with life. Born gay? Okay, so just date girls and hide it. Purposely outed by what was supposedly the most prestigious paper in the country? Okay, so now use that to her advantage and help the rest of the community. Couldn't really handle the public life that came along with being the first gay princess? Okay, sign her the fuck up for the military and learn some stuff. Got blown up and almost lost a leg? Okay, get shipped off back home and meet a pretty blonde doctor while doing it. Felt like she was trapped home like a worthless piece of shit? Okay, make an effort to hang with the family, see a therapist, and sleep with said pretty blonde doctor in the process. Finally felt like she was someone worthy and had to be sent off back to her own haunt just when she finally got comfortable back home? Okay, it would just be two weeks anyway.

And yet she was. Here they were. SAT phone down. Her phone back on base without a single bar. Injured. And she _didn't_ even wanna be here, for the love of god.

"I need to go home," she muttered, loud enough only for Gustus to hear her. "You need to go home. Penelope's been waiting for you to be back home since we shipped off together – which reminds me; I haven't apologized to her yet. I'm firing you when we get home. Get you a desk job. Penelope would appreciate that."

"I'll break your leg again if you do that," Gustus huffed, seriously glaring at her for even daring to suggest that.

"We need to go home," she muttered, softer, because even though she just woke up, she could feel it creeping in.

"And we will."

"Penelope's gonna hate me for this."

"She won't."

"I didn't even want to be here, you know."

"Yes."

"Next time my parents send me to another warzone, tell them no for me."

"I will."

Amidst her confusion and pain induced sleepiness, she didn't even realize that Gustus had moved to tuck her back into the sleeping back until he pulled the flap over, covering her chin, almost like he was scared she'd freeze in this Middle Eastern heat. She would resist, but she was so tired.

Maybe she spoke it out loud. Maybe it was just a thought. But the last thing on her mind as she drifted off to sleep…

 _Clarke_.

* * *

There was a time when she probably would have given anything to be back here, even though they were essentially trapped and would be running out of water in a day or two. They could die quite easily, if Lexa didn't pull herself together and the SAT phone didn't start working soon, but there was a time when she would have found it thrilling.

As quiet as she had been in her youth, where she would always keep it to herself even though she had much to add about the political climate in Polis or she found something her mother said funny, she had never found as much as thrill as she had during her first dispatch. Being out here, with the people who didn't really about her status as a princess but more about her skills as a soldier, the constant awareness even when sleeping – she loved it.

And then she met a pretty blonde doctor. She went home and reunited with her family. She got a bum leg and she started seeing a therapist. And just like what they said, the rest was history.

Right now, there was _no_ thrill to this. No excitement at all. She would never admit out loud that she was scared, but she _was_. She wanted to go home. She missed the pool. She missed getting breakfast with her family and talking about things that no one would have expected a royal family would talk about. She missed waking up spooned by a blonde teddy bear, all cuddly but also somewhat prickly.

She needed to go home.

* * *

It was two days later. The oasis had run dry. She was _parched_. The staff sergeant had passed out and Gustus couldn't wake him up at all.

Lexa honestly thought she was dreaming when she heard it: the whirring of wheels and the telltale noises of boots on the ground and the crackle of radios. She was already hoping that her family would find the letters she'd written for them in the drawer of her office desk and passed Clarke her own. Hoping that Penelope would forgive her. Hoping that Clarke would forgive her.

But then the decrepit doorway with the swinging wooden plank was filled up by a silhouette. A rather small but strong silhouette. Dressed up in camouflage and carrying his own sidearm, her father didn't fail to exude the essence of royalty even when stained with sand and oil. She couldn't see his face, no, but there was no mistaking the man who'd let her suck his thumb and made sure she was sleeping as deeply as a child could before closing the door behind him. The man who'd always kept her safe.

In her sleeping bag, she was shivering. It was a fever that had suddenly attacked her two nights ago, and never relented. But _god_ , was she happy to see her father.

It was only when he fully entered that she could see his face, and the last time he'd been so relieved and delighted at the same time was that time her mother told him she was no longer considering a divorce as they were going through a rough patch. It's a long story.

She didn't even have a voice to call out to him anymore, but he came to her anyway. More like stumbled to her, losing all the grace and elegance that a king should carry, skidding onto his knees to reach her and take her hands, putting them to his lips as he mumbled incoherently and emotionally. She allowed him that moment.

"Oh honey," he whispered and cupped her cheek with one hand. "Honey, I'm so sorry." And obviously, she wasn't so feverish as to start hallucinating things, so she definitely wasn't hallucinating the tears hovering in the corner of his eyes. "I'm so sorry," he whispered and kissed her forehead.

"It's okay," she mustered, letting him kiss all over her face. "It's okay."

"You were missing for so long," he whimpered.

"I'm here. I'm here."

"I'm taking you home," he said, more stable now. He straightened, but didn't let go of her hand. He addressed Gustus and the private and the now revitalized staff sergeant. He nodded at them assuredly and tightened his grip on her hand. "I'm taking all of you home."

And then, just like he did when she was a child, Richmond placed his arms under her knees and shoulders and lifted her up, even though he was _much_ older than before and she was most certainly _much_ bigger than a three-year-old toddler. He did it anyway, grunting in exertion, but not letting go. He was the man who always kept her safe.

* * *

"Happy Service Day, Your Highness?" Ryder greeted as he gained enough consciousness to make more jokes.

She turned towards him in the stretcher she'd been lain out on, grinning, though still a little woozy. Plane rides were definitely not advisable when one had been _thirsting_ and _starving_ for two days. But heck, she'd take wooziness on her way home to her people than being stuck in that stupid house another day.

"We're stretcher buddies," she exclaimed, ignoring the snort her father released and the eyeroll Gustus did. "You know what, Ryder, I have a feeling we're gonna be in each other's lives for quite some time in the future." He raised his brows. "You're a good egg, Sergeant Ryder."

"It's actually Kyle. My friends call me Kyle."

"I prefer Ryder."

He laughed and turned away, but extended a fist in the space between their stretchers. "Whatever you say, Your Highness."

She reciprocated his gesture by bumping her own fist to his. "It's Commander to you."

She was almost certain that he was saying something to her, probably something cheeky. Except she couldn't really hear him, because all of a sudden, on top of the wooziness, the shadows abruptly invaded the corner of her vision, taking over as rapidly as the insurgents had attacked them only days ago. Her chest was _collapsing_ , clawed and tugged and so fucking heavy.

Before she could complain, the shadows had leered at her from within the cages of her pupils and decided that she had had enough consciousness.

Damn, and here she thought she was almost home.

* * *

Within the palace that sat at the edges of Polis capital, where the halls weaved together and formed unlikely patterns, where royalties were born and died in, there was a library. Magnificent, gigantic, lined with shelves all over, and filled to the brim with books and books and books.

There were three librarians – always three – who never ceased in caring for the books – making sure the seams were repaired, original copies were retained as best as possible, clicking their tongues at the children who bent the books just a little too far. And they also always made sure the shelves were strong and sturdy, could hold their owns against the words and ideas they had to carry.

They were important people in a very important place; knowledgeable people in a very knowledgeable place.

After King Richmond II ascended the throne, his Queen would always bring their children to the library on the weekends, even when they were toddlers. She would let them wander around the space, get lost in the mazes of the shelves, and never tired of looking for them afterwards. She'd let them touch the books after telling the librarians to keep all original copies at the top, let them open the books, and let them marvel at the words, slowly growing to understand the stories. She'd made sure that her children were familiar with the three librarians, and have the librarians accidentally fall for the three kids.

Lexa had grown up _loving_ books, more so than her siblings. She started with illustration books to Enid Blytons, graduating to thrillers and romances, and then occasionally reading and criticizing her father's biographies. She'd learned from her mother and made nice with the librarians – they were, in other words, her teachers as well.

But out of all the books in the library, there was one book, nestled in the second from bottom compartment of the fourth shelf in the northwest corner, that she'd destroyed beyond belief. Dogeared, coffee spilled upon, the seams cracking, and every unimaginable thing done to a book, she supposed – the librarians had grown tired of admonishing her, but only because they could very well understand a particular obsession with a particular book.

A translated book: _Fragments of Sappho, circa 630-580 BC_.

She cherished it not because it was really fucking gay, but that was a big bonus. She loved it purely because of a single quote that had stayed with her since the first time she read it at 15, when she'd only started thinking that she was not like her siblings and discovering things about herself that she couldn't really talk to her parents about.

She wandered through the library, deliberately losing herself in the smell and her thoughts. And then she came across this book for some reason she couldn't really remember. And she just took it out of its assigned place and started flipping through them, leaning against the sturdy shelf and spending two hours devouring everything.

' _Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time_.'

It was the simplest quote, written in the most mundane prose. But fuck, those ten words – forty-three characters – had resonated within her like a Buddhist gong being hit on at the right time. It rang bells in her, sent waves of tsunami through her, and stayed nestled in her brain for the longest of time.

She brought it with her everywhere. It was especially _loud_ when she woke up one morning to find her face on front page of every newspaper and the topline of all online news outlets and trending on Twitter _worldwide_. Because even if she hadn't wanted to be remembered, there was no way out of it now. It had been written there: _the World's First Lesbian Princess_. She had been branded, through and through, at eighteen, when she was supposed to still be discovering herself and find out who she was on her own.

And just as she told Clarke, she didn't want that to follow her everywhere. If she was to be the poster of something, it wasn't going to be the gender she loved. That was the worst thing about being a celebrity – once the press caught wind of one of identifiable thing about them, it was more than likely that they'd go carrying that thing at their tail for the rest of their life.

So…she joined the army. She certainly _wasn't_ going to be the first lesbian to ever join the army, and unlike the US, there was no such as thing as Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Polisians didn't give a shit, certainly not when they were literally fighting for their lives.

She didn't know why she was thinking this at this time, but then again, she didn't know what else to think when she was in the middle of a coma and was most likely hanging by a thread, if she remembered her collapsing chest earlier correctly. Maybe because she wanted someone, anyone, to remember her, in another time.

Maybe this time around, they'd remember her as the _first princess who'd been an active soldier in active warzones_ , and _almost died twice_. God, maybe she'd actually die this time.

Good god, she didn't even want to be there.

* * *

However long it had been since she crashed on that plane, Lexa didn't know, but she definitely didn't die. And chemicals definitely weren't nice to wake up to.

She wanted to move her hand – it was itching – but there was a deadweight on it. When she managed to look down without hissing at the cramps that clawed at her neck, she had to smile. Her brother's shining bald head was definitely one for the magazines. Under his dozing bald head, he held tightly to her hand. Her very itchy hand.

She gulped and grimaced at the scratchiness of her throat, starting to wriggle her fingers as much as she could to disturb him from his sleep. It didn't take much, as he leaped awake soon after, pushing the chair back and making a weird noise of having just woken up. He looked at her and blinked rapidly for the next few moments before it caught up to him, and he leaped to his feet, the chair rattling before falling completely behind him.

"Lexa!" he exclaimed, joyful and wary at the same time, not letting go of her hand at all. "Oh, Lexa," he repeated, his free hand reaching up to touch her shoulder gingerly.

Okay, well, not that she wasn't happy that Lincoln was so happy to see her awake, but her hand was _itching_. She gently removed her hand from his gentle grip and started scratching, breathing slowly in relief at the sensation fading away. She then smiled at him and reached up to cheekily pat his cheeks, only to hiss at the sudden pain that shot up chest.

"Oh, crap, no, don't do that. You just came out of surgery," Lincoln said, one hand passing over a glass of water while the other pressing a button above the bed. "You scared us half to death, you crazy bitch," he complained as she drank the water.

"What ha –"

The door crashed open, and _fuck_ , Lexa wanted to just get out of bed and kneel on the floor at the sight before her. Clarke Griffin, in the flesh, disheveled, one arm tugged out of the sleeve of her coat, hair a mess – the most beautiful thing Lexa had ever seen.

"Hallelujah," Lexa whispered.

* * *

 **...another two months? i wanna say it probably won't take that long because my country's currently in lockdown but fuck that because i still have to work anyway and well, i'm a procrastinator - so, two months, just to be safe.**

 **also, social distancing you guys. don't be one of those assholes who kills a whole community because they just want to enjoy spring break - fuck those people.**


	18. dies irae

**omg, can you believe i'm updating this in a week? i can't remember the last time i updated a fic so fast.**

 **and you're gonna hate me for this, but this is also my brand.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

She would have loved to work – she would. Work was a perfect distraction, something she was _good_ at. When she was in the ER, she knew she was being put to good use, and more often than not, she was saving more lives than one would have expected, even though those weren't the lives she wanted to save at the moment – no offense to her patients.

But her mother learning about her current state of mind meant she would intervene, no doubt. And Abby Griffin had _a lot_ of influence in this hospital, even though she didn't even work here, for the love of god. Much of her influence came from her relationship with Marcus, but now that Marcus was out of the way at least partially, people still respected Abby purely because she was a damn good doctor.

So with a call and a stern look, Clarke was put on indefinite sick leave and dragged back to the house her father died in. Her mother dragged her up the stairs to her childhood bedroom, tucked her in, and made a gentle promise that everything would be okay soon. She hadn't heard her mother spoke to her like that since she told Clarke that Jake had passed away.

And it wasn't that she didn't appreciate it, but she was sure that Abby was just lying to her right now, because no one knew better than her the loss of a significant other, especially a significant other whom she'd loved with all her heart and was promised the rest of her life with. Not that Clarke was promised the rest of her life with the Polisian princess, but one would get the picture easily. But Clarke only nodded meekly and cuddled deeper into the cotton blanket that her paternal grandmother had knitted for her years ago, if only to not have to see _that_ look in her mother's eyes a moment longer.

It lasted four days – maybe even five, she'd lost count – where she'd huddle in her childhood bed, shower, eat the meals her mother had cooked, and keep calling and calling and calling the SAT phone that had gone out of service. It was a cycle of self-torment, and she couldn't stop herself. This was why she would do better at work.

Being here like a useless shell was the last thing she wanted, or needed, as a matter of fact. Because in between being a useless shell who had a mother to coddle again, her brain began to come up with the endless possibilities between here and a Libyan warzone. She'd seen enough bodies and detached limbs during her time as an army doctor, but the thought of Lexa as one of those people had her stumbling out of bed and throwing up in the toilet.

But on the fourth morning, she realized she couldn't take it anymore. It was too quiet. Too calm. And it _shouldn't_ be. She looked out the window and realized that the sun was barely there, hovering only an inch over the horizon. Things were not quiet or calm, and she felt a pull in her chest that she couldn't ignore.

She got up and didn't even bother showering the stench off her body before she pulled on the next most decent shirt and jeans she could find. She got out of her room and pretty much bulldozed downstairs. When she was heading out the door, she could vaguely hear her mother calling for her name from upstairs.

She didn't even know where she was going, but the pull was there, directing her to drive to wherever she was supposed – it could very well be directing her into the middle of the ocean for all she cared, but she just _couldn't_ ignore it. But luckily enough, it wasn't. Just as she was pulling up to the parking lot of Silver Hill Hospital, her phone rang, showing a blocked ID. Somehow, she just knew.

"Where? Where is she?"

"Your hospital, bizarrely enough," Anya reported with a disbelieving laugh. Clarke fumbled out of the car, cursing at the seatbelt. "You – they're saying they need you."

"What?" she panted as she jogged towards the entrance. "Who needs me? For what?"

"The surgery, Clarke. She needs surgery. _Fast_."

The blonde came to a startling halt in the ER, where literally a whole area had been cleared out for the royalties and their bodyguards and holy crap, she didn't even realize this hospital had _that_ many doctors. She could see Gustus sitting on one side, getting his vitals checked by a shaking resident. She could see the suits and the glasses and trembling doctors. She could see the _hospital's president_ wiping sweat off her brows. She could see the king, the queen, the princess, and the prince.

She could see _her_ princess in the bed they're surrounding, tended over in a kaleidoscope of panic by the Head of Cardio and Head of Ortho. Beyond the cacophony of an injured princess in their hospital, she could hear it – the flatline. It was the worst fear she could ever encounter in her life – this was scarier than finding out that she was saving the princess' life in a warzone, because this was _Lexa_.

"Dr. Griffin!"

She rushed into action.

* * *

"I heard that I have you to thank for saving my daughter's life not one, but twice."

The blonde opened her eyes and blinked away the tears to see that Queen Storme had exited Lexa's room. The bodyguards were lined down the hall, determined to make sure that their charges were safe, save for Gustus, who was still in recovery despite his protests.

Clarke would stand up, but it had been a _wild_ morning; not even coffee could save her. She sat out here, not only because she didn't want to disturb the family reunion inside, but also because she was too scared to look at the beautiful sleeping face and _wonder_. She did what she had to do today, but there were just some things that could amount to _too much_ , at some point. And having to save her girlfriend's life _twice_? Yeah.

She managed a weak smile at the queen and nodded. "Your Majesty."

The woman smiled back at her and sat next to her on the bench. For some reason, Clarke wasn't appalled at all at the fact that a queen was sitting right next to her. "Given that you've saved my daughter's life twice now, I think it's fair for you to call me Storme. I think my husband's thinking of appointing you a dukeship."

Clarke wanted to balk, but she could only laugh. "I was just doing my job, ma'am."

Storme hummed and leaned against the back of the bench. "You might be right, but I suspect any parent would be grateful to anyone who saved their child's life."

"I had selfish intent."

"All the same."

"I remember –" Clarke gulped and leaned back as well, looking sideways at the queen. "When I was a kid, in the history books, they taught us that King Richmond II had a brief stint in the army."

A look of realization dawned across her companion's face, who nodded. "Yes, yes, he did." But before Clarke could inquire further, Storme interjected. "He was a pilot. But he wasn't – he'd never been in any real danger, not like – not like Lexa has. He got in and out. He was home almost all the time."

"Right."

She had so much to say. Well, not much to say, because she was, to be perfectly, quite at a loss of words for what she had been put through for the past few days. But she had so much in her chest and in her head, _so much_ to unload and unpack, and the mother of her _so much_ definitely wasn't an ideal person to unload _so much_ on.

No one could really understand what it was like. To go through _days_ of thinking your girl had died, and then on a random, feel this pull to come to the _hospital_ of all places, _and then_ be put into surgery _on_ your girl, like you were supposed to be this emotionless robot. But then again, no one working in this hospital – save for two – knew about the true nature of her relationship with a princess of the country.

She didn't know if her mother knew; she hadn't found the energy to call her yet. Technically, Clarke was still on leave, so she should have gone home after the surgery, but instead, she had just chosen to sit outside Lexa's room and…well, she didn't quite know what she was doing out here, really.

Was it weird that even though she knew Lexa was back, there was still pain?

"I wouldn't pretend to understand what you're going through, but I need you to understand that it's not her fault," Storme said, whipping Clarke out of her thoughts. Clarke raised her brows and nodded slowly, to which Storme pursed her lips. Not in anger, but with guilt. "She's a _princess_ , Clarke."

"I –" Clarke closed her mouth abruptly and squeezed her eyes shut. She abruptly stood up, folding her friends in front of her, and faced the queen. "Will you excuse me a moment, Your Majesty?"

Storme seemed surprised at her sudden movement, which was fair, since Clarke had pretty much resembled a bag of bones only moments earlier. She gathered herself and sat upright. "Storme," she reminded. "And of course; this is your hospital."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"It's Storme!"

Not that Clarke was really listening. She just needed to…not be here right now.

* * *

"Hey," Niylah greeted as she approached Clarke's quiet corner in the cafeteria, sitting down opposite her and frowning at the look on the blonde's face. "What's going on?"

Clarke eyed the cup of coffee in her hands, long gone cold and not a sip drank. She raised her eyes to gaze around the room, only to find that everyone else's gaze on her. It wasn't surprising to find herself the subject of a gossip hype, especially when literally _everyone_ in this hospital – patients, staff, even those who were not working – had been made to sign an NDA the second Lexa was rolled into the hospital.

These people had only each other to talk with, and Clarke was at the epicenter of it all, because she was supposedly the magical hands of it all, the woman who served as the key to saving Princess Lexa's life – the doctor who only came in because of an undeniable urge pulling at her heart, but they didn't know that. And this doctor had run away from the _queen_ of the country to talk to her daughter's therapist, because _who else could she talk to_?

"Lexa is…" she drifted off, narrowing her eyes a little to fend away the moisture that welled up almost immediately.

Niylah raised her brows. "Did you guys have an argument? I'd think that connection over there would have been terrible."

Clarke huffed a sarcastic laugh, throwing her head back to blink rapidly at the ceiling. Oh, if only the other woman knew. "Lexa's in an executive room on the eighth floor right now, having just survived a cardiac arrest from sepsis." And because she wasn't made to sign an NDA, miraculously enough, Clarke shouldered on, ignoring the shock Niylah's displaying. She told Niylah everything, from her scratchy phone call with Lexa to the moment she exited the operation theatre and threw up in the nearest trashcan. "I don't even know how Anya got my number, honestly."

"Is she okay? Lexa?" Niylah asked.

"She's stable. Still in a coma."

"Are you okay?"

"I don't know."

Niylah was quiet for a moment, sitting back in her chair with her hands folded in her lap. She observed Clarke with astute eyes, the eyes of a therapist. Clarke squirmed and returned her gaze to the cup of cold coffee, which had probably already gone stale, given that she'd bought it an hour ago.

"Clarke, why did you call me here?" her friend finally asked, subtle but still kind of a blow.

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do," Niylah scoffed. "Clarke, we're both doctors. Let's not pretend we're dumber than we deserve." She cracked her knuckles and tilted her head at Clarke. "And of course, I wouldn't dare to pretend like I know what you're going through. Hell, I think if I found out a royalty's falling for me, I'd turn the other way and maybe even flee the country." Clarke's lips twitched at her friend's remarks. "And I think the fact that _you_ didn't, and after everything you did today, is enough to prove that you are one brave individual."

The doctor raised her brows and squinted at the therapist, tilting her own head in return as the sourness in her chest refused to leave her alone. "Am I though?"

Niylah took a long look at her, and then the assessing look in her eyes disappeared, replaced by the gentleness of a friend. She leaned forward and carefully took one of Clarke's hands in hers, gripping it in a reassured manner. "As your friend and someone who's seen many cases of burnouts, I think that you should take a break if you really need it."

"But what if it means –"

"Lexa's my patient, but you're my friend. It means what it means."

The doctor considered her friend's advice, slowly lifting the cup of coffee to her lips, only to grimace and deposit it on the table quickly. It was stale. Her pager buzzed.

* * *

Clarke was most definitely not a runner. She despised physical activities unless it was her standing guard over an operating table and moving scalpels like a dancer. If anything, her experience of hiking with Lexa before her world kind of blew the hell up was _great_ testament to how much she was _not_ a runner.

But when her pager buzzed with a singular room number as the message, she swore she'd beat Usain Bolt's record. Giving Niylah a hasty hug and a rushed thank you, Clarke had bolted past the growing queue for lunch and towards the elevator. When the elevator didn't come fast enough, she'd taken to the fucking _stairs_ and actually ran up until she'd reached the eighth floor, sweating profusely and panting like a puppy, but not at all relenting as she pushed through the door and sprinted through the weaving hallways.

Throughout the run, there were only two things in her mind: either Lexa hadn't made it or Lexa had woken up. She was _desperately_ hoping for the latter, but the skeptic in her – the medical practitioner in her who'd seen Lexa's innards twice – didn't exactly rule out the former. When she reached the door, she could see down the other side of the hallway the rest of Lexa's family and a whole army of bodyguards.

She didn't hesitate this time and just opened the door, one arm already out of her coat because of how goddamn hot it was. She froze where she was when she saw the sight in front of her, the sourness in her heart reducing by many fractions and her bones not so heavy anymore. In her mind, there were fireworks and echoed sighs of relief.

"Hallelujah," Lexa breathed with a burgeoning grin, eyes locked onto hers.

Hallelujah indeed.

Clarke finished shedding her coat and threw it to an unsuspecting Lincoln, and she just wrapped her arms around her girlfriend, careful with her back but not at all careful with the glass of water pinned between them, spilled to oblivion. She put her face in brown hair and breathed in the antiseptic and the chemical cleanliness of it all.

Lexa heaved a sound of surprise in her ear, and Clarke wanted to bottle that sound up in a tiny jar and play it all the time. She wanted it to ring in her ear forever – proof of life. It only got better when Lexa only put her own arms around Clarke's shoulders, not speaking a word, because that was who she was, in the end. Lexa might enjoy making inappropriate jokes at inappropriate times; sometimes she was smugger than most, but when the time came, she always knew.

The blonde didn't let her arms loosen from around Lexa's shoulders even though she heard the door open behind her and the relieved noises from the royal family. Instead, she only buried her face deeper into the crook of Lexa's shoulders, inhaling deeply. And Lexa, thankfully, didn't relent either, and just let Clarke embrace her for as long as she wanted, giving only perfunctory greetings to her family.

"I don't ever want to see you in a hospital bed again, you hear me, Lexa Woods?" Storme's voice rang out throughout the room.

For a moment, Clarke felt anger rise within her chest at the statement, because _who_ sent Lexa out to Libya in the first place? Really, if it was any other family, she probably would have already given them a piece of her mind. But the truth was that this wasn't any other family, and any other family wouldn't have just sent their daughter out of a warzone because it was her _duty_.

And that was the crux of it all, wasn't it? Lexa, a princess bound to her duties, before anything else.

At that, Clarke finally let go, stepped back, and allowed Lexa's family to have her.

* * *

After an hour of coddling and million apologies that Lexa waved away tiredly, the royal family finally thought they had had enough and shuffled out the door dutifully, though Richmond promised that he'd still be around the hospital. He seemed to be the one whose shoulders looked the heaviest. Before he left, he made sure to place a lingering kiss on his daughter's head, which the brunette accepted with a soft smile.

Clarke remembered Lexa telling her that no man had ever made her feel as safe as her father, and how ironic it was that he had then decided to send her to one of the most volatile warzones in the world out of a sense of duty. That was during happier times, when they had to decide to not give a shit about everything else and skipped off to the mountainside for a camping trip.

"You've been awfully quiet," Lexa said, smiling gingerly and extending a hand in Clarke's direction from the bed.

The blonde looked at the extended hand and considered her future, her options, because she supposed this was where the crossroads lay. This was that point in the choose-your-own-adventure games, where a single decision could impact the rest of the journey. And for the life of her, she _wanted_ a future.

When she looked back up at Lexa, the look in the brunette's eyes was telling enough. Lexa was a smart person, incredibly intelligent, a coyote in a warzone. If Clarke was to take a guess, she guessed that Lexa might have already understood that this would happen eventually. She'd probably already understood that fact longer than Clarke had, judging by the melancholy in Lexa's eyes – the brunette didn't dare to hope.

"These past few days," Clarke started, her voice hoarse. Her heart _panged_ painfully at the glint of delight in Lexa's eyes at the sound of her voice. "I didn't think I was capable of feeling the things I felt until Anya came here and told me the news." She inhaled shakily and stood by Lexa's bedside, finally tangling their fingers together. "I've always wondered what it was like for my mom when she found out my dad was dying; I think I know now."

"I'm sorry."

Clarke frowned and rolled her eyes a little. "I'm not mad at you, Lexa." The brunette raised her brows questioningly. "I've known from the beginning that it's not your fault. You didn't go there because you wanted to. And hell, I don't blame you for joining them on patrols, because they're your brothers and 're a soldier; you're also a princess." She licked her lips and made sure that they made eye contact. "But that's the problem, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Lexa asked, but not hopefully. Actually, she sounded angry herself. There still no hopefulness in her eyes, but the melancholy had transitioned into something else, something like…betrayal. "You knew from the beginning –"

"I _knew_ that. I _know_ that," Clarke added, her voice rising along. "But you –" She licked her lips and relinquished her hold on Lexa's hand, running her fingers through her hair. "For _four_ days, I thought you were dead!"

"I'm here now."

" _Now_ ," Clarke reiterated and started pacing the floor. "You're the most dutiful person I've ever known, either as a commander or a princess, and I _love_ that about you. I love everything about you. But –"

"But you don't love who my family is," Lexa interjected, cold and detached.

"I didn't say that."

"You implied it."

Clarke clenched her jaw and released a suppressed grunt. In her heart, there were all kinds of emotions warring for dominance – sadness, anger, betrayal. Honestly, she wanted to just forget about this whole thing and climbed into bed with Lexa. She wanted to just hold the girl that she was sure she would love more than anything or anyone else, now or in the future.

But she was a doctor, and as a doctor, she'd seen and heard too much to not be a realist at all times. And this was a moment to be realistic, because there was no way that things could go on the way they were before, regardless of how short their time together had been. It wasn't healthy for her, and it certainly wouldn't be healthy for the princess in the long run.

She stopped pacing at the foot of the bed and said, "I love you. I've never officially met your family except on the newspapers and just now, though they seem like kind people. But they sent you to Libya and I don't know how to forgive them for that."

"They didn't –"

"Jaha made a mistake, but your parents went along with it because they're the monarchy and _you_ went along with it because you're the _princess_." Clarke took a deep breath and didn't even bother to let the tears stop rolling down her cheeks. "And you will always be the princess. And you will always do what duty tells you to. You'll go to Timbuktu if that's your duty. You might even go spacewalking, for all I know. And like I said, I love you for that, but I also love you _too much_ to put myself through that again."

After her rant, there was nothing but a long stretch of silence. Both of them stared at each other, tears flowing, and both of them knew that this was it. She was a commoner and Lexa was a princess; there was no changing that. Clarke was weak; there was no changing that as well.

And then suddenly, the vitriol in Lexa just dissipated, leaving her sagging in the bed, weaker than Clarke had seen her. She offered a weak smile and chuckled to herself.

"I'm sorry." Clarke frowned. "I promised myself that I would let you go if you wanted to go, because I love you." Clarke's knees went weak, and the only thing supporting her was the bedframe. "It was you, you know."

"What?"

"It was you that got me home. The thought of you."

"Lexa."

The brunette sucked in a sharp breath and furrowed her brows. "I'm strong, I know that, but I'm also tired. You were – you _are_ the one thing that kind of made this world make sense again. It's a stupid world, but it's a world with you in it, and that makes sense." At that, Clarke squeezed her eyes shut, a whimper fighting hard to break out of her clamped up throat. "If it hadn't been for you, I think I would have just given up."

"You can't say that. You can't guilt me into staying with you."

"I'm not. I would never do that, Clarke. It's kind of offensive that you'd think that." Lexa's laugh came out shaky at that. She inhaled deeply, exhaled noisily, and nodded at Clarke. "You are the one thing that makes sense in the world for me; you will always be the one thing that makes sense in the world for me. And _you_ can't change that, because you exist." She gulped and took one long look at Clarke. "I promised myself that I would let you go if you wanted to, but can I ask for one last selfish thing?"

Clarke blinked and nodded.

"Can you kiss me?"

There was no hesitation in the way Clarke launched herself away from the foot of the bed and strode towards Lexa's bedside. She cupped Lexa's face in her hands and leaned down to press their lips together, slotting as perfectly as the first time they'd kissed, which would always remain the most perfect kiss in Clarke's entire life, and this would always be the most heartbreaking one.

Softly at first, and then with a swift escalation of intensity that made Clarke cling to Lexa like she was the only solid thing in a dizzy, stupid world. Clarke supposed Lexa was for awhile, and would probably always be that. Into this kiss was a flowing red thread – everything that Clarke had to offer was knitted into this thread, and she was giving it to Lexa, because who else deserved something like this other than Lexa?

"Go, Clarke," the brunette whispered brokenly against her lips.

Clarke disobeyed by staying there for a prolonged period of time, taking both of their breaths away. And when Lexa whimpered pleadingly, the blonde withdrew and turned her back to the princess, doing her very best to not look back as she walked towards the door. If she looked back, she would never leave. And where would that leave them?

* * *

 **what? angst is my brand, y'all know that**


	19. beatae memoriae

**two weeks isn't too bad, right?**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

She used to care about the time and the day and the month and the year. Okay, maybe it wasn't that she actively cared; it was more like she _bothered_ looking at the calendar, checking out her watch, or ask someone what day it was. Heck, she didn't think she cared more about the seconds ticking away during the time she was missing in action, _desperate_ to return home to the woman who'd promised to wait for her.

Well, the funny thing was she _did_. Lexa had lain there in that rundown den in the middle of a village _teeming_ with insurgents, as they had found out, and apparently, she had been suffering internal sepsis, so much so that the poison reached her heart and gave her an epic cardiac arrest. Honestly, nothing in this world disrespected her more than her own body. And from the looks on her family's faces earlier, it was highly probable that she died on the flight over here.

But she didn't. She _came back_ , she kept her promise, and she had her heart broken anyway, regardless of her heartbreaker's efforts in saving it. And now, she didn't care about the time. She counted the days to come home to Clarke, and there was no point in counting anyway, as she'd recently discovered.

The door to her room opened and she swung her gaze to it.

"I know you."

A black man who just walked in paused in his stride, door halfway open, blocking the entrance for her father. Oh right, the king had mentioned that he'd be sticking around. The stranger blinked a few times, mouth open, like he couldn't fathom the idea of the princess in the bed acknowledging his presence and claiming to know him. He cleared his throat and offered a gentle smile after gathering his composure.

"Good morning, Your Highness. I'm Dr. Wells Jaha, Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery here at Silver Hill." He opened the door fully and walked all the way to the foot of Lexa's bed to retrieve her chart. Richmond followed, but she avoided eye contact with him and focused all her attention on the doctor. "I operated on you yesterday."

She froze at the name, suddenly remembering where she'd seen him before. A few years ago, there was a gala just a few months after her accidental coming out, and he had been there.

"Jaha," she remarked with a bitter smile. "Right, I forgot you're a doctor."

He returned a smile, similarly bitter, as he tucked the chart under his armpit and tilted his head. "Yes, I think we were both too distracted to focus on anything else."

Distracted was one way to put it. Lexa was sure that gala was the first moment when she felt the urge to kill someone, specifically Thelonious Jaha. Her sexuality had become a public spectacle at that point, but Jaha, ignorant as he was, kept trying to set her up with his son, making comments like they'd grown to like each other soon. Lexa and Wells had decided to just escape to the balcony, with the latter profusely apologizing for his father's behavior.

"How is your father?" she asked, pointedly still ignoring her father. She didn't really need to ask that question; she didn't want to know about the man at all if she could.

"Oh, we're not talking," Wells offered nonchalantly. "Now, I'm just here to do some follow-up checks on you. You've been through quite the ringer, Your Highness." Lexa hummed in response. "Dr. Griffin's stuck in a surgery right now, so she can't make it."

Lexa's heart _ached_ at the mention of her girl – _ex_ -girlfriend. She gulped and nodded. "Right."

"I watched her save your leg in Libya," Wells said as he took out his stethoscope and excused himself before placing it on her chest. "That was only six months ago, wasn't it? Can't believe you'd send yourself back into the warzone that soon with your condition."

She hummed again, the bitter smile returning when she finally saw the look on her father's face. She made sure to wait until Wells had finished with listening to her heartbeat and was able to make eye contact with her again. "I think you can ask your father about that, though I'm pretty sure he's signed an NDA as well." Richmond was determinedly staring at his feet now.

Wells blinked at her mentioning his father again, seemingly confused for a moment before he seemed to have remembered Jaha's position in the government. And then for a moment, she thought she saw a hint of frustration on his face before he returned to his professional outlook. Well, maybe she didn't dislike him quite as much.

He sighed and cleared his throat. "Your Highness, you suffered a cardiac arrest from a sepsis reaction, and Dr. Griffin and I had done our best to make sure that poison doesn't damage your heart any further. But given that you've only arrived to our hospital _in the middle_ of a cardiac arrest, and if I may be so bold, you were really hanging by a thread at that point, there _is_ unfortunately some permanent damage to your heart that we couldn't salvage as much as we wanted to." Huh. How ironic; _actual_ damage to her heart. "And in that, there are some side effects that we couldn't avoid, but might be able to fix partially through physical therapy."

She figured. Since the moment she'd woken up, there was something about her left leg that felt…much less than it had before. She could still move, but it was stiff and hardly flexible. Plus, there were times in the middle of the night when she could feel her left arm and leg jumping without her meaning to.

These things, she didn't tell anyone, not even Clarke. After all, seeing Clarke in that state when she'd visited yesterday evening, putting more weight to her worries was the last thing Lexa wanted. And now, she still didn't want anyone else to know, despite her growing anger at them during her time to stew the night before, so she just hummed and widened her eyes a fraction at Wells, hoping that she'd be able to pass her message to him quietly.

Wells was quiet for a moment, his eyes narrowed slightly, before they returned to their normal sizes and he adjusted his weight. He nodded and started scribbling in his chart.

"I'll have to send you up for a CT scan to make sure everything is in working order before we proceed," he said. Smart Wells, he was – no wonder Clarke had become friends with him. He replaced the chart in his armpit and grimaced a little. "And while I'd like to apologize for whatever my father's done, I can't really choose my family, as they like to say."

At that, Lexa laughed, stopping abruptly at the pain blooming beneath her ribs. She grimaced and slacked back against the pillow, fire searing up her chest with no signs of stopping. She panted at the ceiling, her ears buzzing, barely feeling Wells' hand on her shoulder.

She clenched her jaw and went through the list of weapons that she had memorized, breathing as deeply and slowly as she could. The pain eventually subsided, but she supposed she could attribute that to Wells administering morphine through the drip. She grunted at the lingering ache from suddenness of earlier and laughed again, softer and gentler this time.

"You can say that again, Dr. Jaha," she said.

* * *

Wells had left after scheduling her CT scan that would happen in the morning, leaving her alone with her father, which, honestly, was the last thing she wanted right now. Earlier, she had hugged and smiled and talked with them because she was much too happy to be home to be able to see their faces once again to think about anything else; to think about a certain pretty blonde doctor sitting in a corner of the room quietly.

But watching the door close behind Clarke and knowing that it was the last time she would ever kiss the best woman that would ever enter her life, it somehow stirred something inside Lexa. Something vicious, something unkind, something heated but not the good kind, something that made her want to throw things at the wall, something that she had only experienced when she woke up one random morning to find out that her sexuality had been exposed to the world.

And the truth was if she had time, she would have suppressed it all down and ignored the direction it was taking, pretending everything was okay. But just her emotions were boiling, almost spilling over the pot, the door had opened and she saw her father behind a kind-looking black man, and it was game over. There was no turning back.

And it seemed that Richmond managed to sense it, the _waves_ of negativity just rolling off her skin right now – maybe that's the irony of it. Among the royal family, no one knew Lexa better than her father, her sister a close second. Her mother was too much of a…mother to truly be able to understand the things that went through Lexa's mind at times. Richmond had always managed to sit there quietly and take one long look at Lexa and knew.

He shuffled his feet on the cheap tiles and cleared his throat, taking a seat in the chair by Lexa's bedside. He looked around searchingly and asked, "Where's Clarke?"

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, shaking her head. "Don't say her name," she whispered, still reeling from the lingering ache. She opened her eyes and directed her gaze at him, stern and narrowed. "Don't you say her name."

"Lexa –"

"How'd you find me?" she asked, because as _angry_ as she was right now, she still wanted to know.

He blinked at her and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, sighing in resignation. "I was a soldier myself, you know. I know how things work."

"As a pilot," Lexa pointed out, steadfast at the offended wince he took.

It was true. In their family lineage, there was no one as active and involved in the military than the founder of the royal family and herself. Her siblings had refrained from that line of career, and her father was only a peripheral pilot. At this rate, she didn't think there was any point of lying or sugarcoating anything.

After all, they didn't sugarcoat the fact that they needed her to go Libya because of the optics. They certainly weren't very concerned about the optics when she had first told them that she'd joined the army. She supposed some stuff said about the people in power were true; they always learned to take advantage of any given situation.

The fucking optics.

"I was missing in action, and it's not easy recovering those who're MIA. I know, because I'd been involved in a few of those operations myself. And I'm pretty sure Jaha – _Thelonious_ Jaha – wasn't much help either because he's just a bloated figurehead who doesn't know shit about how things actually work on the field." Her voice was becoming increasingly deep and strained as she spoke. "So how did you find me?"

"We worked with the Americans." Lexa raised her brow, skeptical. "They may be a stronger country, but we're still a royal family. And you went missing while on a joint patrol with the Americans. They couldn't exactly just leave you alone. The ramifications would have been catastrophic."

"The ramifications," she scoffed.

" _Yes_ , Lexa, the ramifications," her father hissed, slapping his thigh and sitting upright, staring at her with wide and sincere eyes. "You're my _daughter_." She looked away. "Even if we hadn't worked with the Americans, I would have flown here and looked for you on my own. In fact, your mother was prepared to do that the moment we found out that you went missing."

"It was for the optics."

" _Lexa_."

"What?" she snapped, turning to glare at him. "What, dad? That's what you said. You and mom sent me there and told me it was for the optics, and I had no choice in the matter because it's my _duty_."

"And it's true!" He ran his fingers through his hair and extended an arm at nowhere in particular. "Did you think we wanted to send you there? We _just_ got you back and you were _just_ getting better. Honestly, if we could, we would have kept you in the palace so we could see you all the time, because you have no idea. _No idea_ how much we worried about you while you were gone. But we didn't, because you're an _adult_ and you are _so_ stubborn. And being an adult means you have responsibilities. And unfortunately for you, you were born into the royal family."

She still couldn't determine whether having the Polis palace as her home was fortunate or unfortunate. There was truth to her father's words, and it wasn't as if she didn't know that she _was_ loved; that her family loved her to pieces. But there was also fact that their unconditional love occasionally came with conditions as well, because of their names and the house they lived in.

Deep down inside, the rational side of her understood where he was coming from, understood that they had their difficulties too. And she wasn't blind to the fact that she hadn't made things easy for them since she was honorably discharged from the army. They had tried their very best to gel with her and make sure she was as comfortable as possible, but they still failed at getting why she went out for walks at night or swims early in the morning or avoid sleep as much as possible.

They couldn't possibly understand that, and she wouldn't want them to, anyway.

"If you ask me again whether I'd send you to Libya knowing what happened to you, I'd be selfish and say no, maybe even fire Jaha on the spot while I was at it. But I didn't know what would happen to you, and I have _my own_ duty as well to our people, and that includes our people over there." He hesitated, but reached down to take her hand anyway, slack in his grip. "A thousand apologies wouldn't be to make up for this, and your mother and I are really sorry, kid. We just really hope you'll understand that."

As much truth as there was to her father's words, Lexa felt like she was being pushed into a corner. There was supposed to be options. Well, there was, unless one was a princess and born into the world with unexpected responsibilities on their shoulders.

Back in the day, she would have just gone along with everything, because she wasn't just a dutiful person; she _liked_ her duties. She liked the impact her status had on the world and what she could do for her people. It was undeniable that she had made a mark with her current pet project, a pet project that was well on its way to go further than it was now.

But the fact remained that she never asked to be born as the daughter King Richmond II and Queen Storme I, and she was sure that she would have been just as happy had she been a commoner. Maybe she'd be a lawyer. Maybe her ex-girlfriend wouldn't have broken up with her so easily. She kind of understood what some people meant when they joked about suing their parents for having them without their consent now.

She took her hand away from her father's grasp and ignored the disappointment that just _exuded_ from him. "Clarke left," she answered his previous question, looking into his eyes. _Clarke left and she would never come back_ , she didn't say.

She hadn't cried when she realized that she could never fight another battle again. She hadn't cried when she came back and realized that she was pretty much disabled. She hadn't cried when she woke up in a dilapidated den, realizing that she was in the middle of nowhere. She hadn't cried when she watched Clarke's figure disappear through the door. She certainly wasn't going to cry now.

While Lexa wasn't sure how exactly she was looking at her father, but inside, there was a bubbling cesspool of _boiling_ resentment. It didn't matter how sorry her parents were or how much they apologized; it didn't matter how _right_ Richmond had sounded or how much she recognized the position they were all in, each and every one of them, from Richmond down to her.

None of those mattered. Not now, anyway.

She didn't have to say much else after that. Her father's expression was remorseful and lost. He'd barely met the blonde, but he knew from what little she told him how important Clarke had been to her. Still was. Probably forever would. The masochist in Lexa wanted Clarke to stay with her forever.

At last, all he could offer was a slow nod and a whisper that he'd return tomorrow morning, asking her to take care of herself in the meantime. She watched as he lifted his hand to her face, hesitating inches away, and shook his head to himself. As he walked out, his shoulders were slumped and his head was low. Well, she was the same.

Like father, like daughter, as they said.

* * *

"This is quite unexpected, isn't it?"

Lexa hummed as she laid still in the machine for it to do its work. "What is?"

After her father had left, she didn't sleep. Her chest hurt. Her leg felt numb. She almost wanted to go for a walk, maybe even had a look at the Avicenna bust in the garden, if the wheelchair wasn't so far away and she literally couldn't move her leg at all. So instead, she spent many hours going through her photos with Clarke, as little as they were, until she finally succumbed to sleep.

"For you to end up in the same hospital as I am, years after my father tried to set us up," Wells stated. She couldn't see him because she was stuck in the machine, but he sounded like he was _very_ amused; she wasn't. "I guess it's more unexpected that you ended up in the same hospital as Clarke and was operated on by her as well."

Lexa clenched her jaw. This was what she got for yearning to be with Clarke so much that she ended up being sent to the same hospital that Clarke worked in. Goddamn manifestation or whatever the crap they called it. She inhaled steadily, making sure not to move too much – she'd been through this before, she knew how it worked.

"So I think it's time you tell me what it is that you've been hiding from your d – His Majesty yesterday," he corrected himself quickly. "Do you call him dad?" She smirked a little. "That's kind of weird, finding out that there are people who call the king dead, but I guess that kind of comes with family. You probably call Her Majesty mom too." Her smirk only widened. "Actually, I don't think I'm supposed to talk to you like this as well," he muttered into his mic, probably not even meaning for her to hear it.

"You played a part in saving my life, Wells. I think that gives you the right to talk to me any way you want. Respectfully, of course," she added. Not everyone could get the privileges Clarke did; probably no one ever will.

"Right," Wells murmured. "So…"

She heaved a quiet sigh and wondered briefly how long had passed since she'd gotten into this machine. "My left leg…" she trailed off, focusing on aforementioned limb, as if extreme focus could get her some feeling left. Manifestation, right? Otherwise, she wouldn't be in the hospital. And yet. "I can't feel a thing."

Before she knew it, there was a clatter and a surprised sound by Wells. And if they weren't in a hospital and she was stuck in a CT machine and she didn't know that her father had posted two extra guards for her while Gustus was still decommissioned, she would have leaped up and held up her fists. That probably meant that Niylah's probably going to have to see a lot more of her from now on. Plus, this room wasn't exactly soundproof, so if anything had happened, they would have heard it earlier.

But that didn't mean she wasn't still wary. Being missing in action did things to a person. Well, the events _before_ going missing in action did things to a person. But they were all the same. This place may be infrastructurally sound, the beeping may not mean a bomb getting ready to go off, and people in white may mean they were lifesavers; it still didn't discount the fact that she'd been through the things she'd been through.

"Lexa, you need to calm down," Wells hurriedly said into the mic. "We're almost done. Just another minute to go. We can't scan anything with your heart going haywire like that. Just calm down."

She closed her eyes and did what she always did: reciting weapons and imagining them in her head. "What was that?"

"Oh, uh, just –" He was interrupted by three beeps. "Oh, hey, you're done. Yep."

As she waited for the machine to slide her out, she heard the door to the room open, followed by steady footsteps approaching her position. When she opened her eyes, she sucked in a sharp breath and moved to sit upright, her left leg dangling over the edge.

Clarke's gaze roved to said leg and focused on it for a long time, so long that Wells pointed a finger over his shoulder and slipped out, so long that Lexa was feeling pinpricks on her ass. The blonde had her hands shoved into her coat pockets and her lips pursed into a thin line. Lexa wanted to appreciate the view in front of her, but she wasn't going to lie; she was kind of scared right now.

"Why didn't you say anything yesterday?" Clarke asked as soon as her eyes came up to meet Lexa's again, storm swirling inside those baby blues.

Lexa raised her brows. "You were breaking up with me."

"I'm also your doctor."

"Clarke, we both know that you _weren't_ my doctor yesterday."

"And what? You were just gonna let me leave without telling me about this?" Clarke exclaimed, her voice verging on frustration as she gestured towards the leg.

"Frankly, yes."

"Lexa –"

" _Dr. Griffin_ ," Lexa muscled her way through, pursing her lips at the hurt that flashed across the blonde's expression.

She licked her lips and stared mournfully at the wheelchair that had been pushed into a corner of the room. As if sensing what she'd been looking, the doctor rolled the wheelchair over to the princess, but the latter waved her away when she tried to help her get into the wheelchair. While Lexa was struggling to find stability in the chair, she could hear Clarke huffing next to her.

"It's time I learn to do these things myself," Lexa said, quiet but loud enough for her ex-girlfriend to hear.

"You've been learning to do things yourself since the day you were born," Clarke replied.

"Then why not another?"

The blonde moved to get behind Lexa, except she couldn't as Lexa had quickly spun the chair around, almost a little too much that she skidded to a stop diagonal towards Clarke. Her fingers tightened around the wheel.

"I can do it." At this point, Clarke was frowning heavily, her entire face set in an expression of confusion and lack of understanding. "In the interest of our…professionalism in your workplace, I think it'd be best if you're no longer on my case."

That took a lot out of her, because, to be very honest, Lexa would _love_ for Clarke to stay with her, to be there for her in the middle of the night where they would tell each other more stuff about each other. But this wasn't six months ago, and they certainly weren't in a war hospital at the edge of Libya – god, were they _not_ – so Lexa needed to let go.

And this was the first step.

"That's not professional, especially not for me," Clarke retorted, her face seeming to be getting redder with anger as seconds passed. Lexa didn't like to see that look. "It's not that easy, Lexa. When the interim chief catches wind of you kicking me off your case, he'll need to know why. And then I'll be joining Marcus and Finn in front of the council."

Lexa nodded. Having her personal stuff with Clarke aired out and being the reason for the possible end of Clarke's career was the last thing she wanted. She adjusted the wheelchair to face Clarke fully. "Okay, then you're not off the case –" Clarke nodded "– on paper. I don't –" Lexa closed her eyes, because how could she look at Clarke and not want to kiss the living daylights out of her now that she knew what it was like? "You walked out yesterday, and I don't want you coming back in. Ever." She refused to open her eyes, pretending to not hear the quiet gasp that Clarke released. "We broke up. We're done. I need to let go, and I can't let go if I keep seeing you; seeing that you still care."

"I _do_ care."

"But do you _want_ to?" Lexa shot back, eyes opening, vigorous in their intensity as she pinned Clarke down with her stare. "Because I don't want you to." She gulped at the tears that started welling in Clarke's eyes. "We had a good run. We were _happy_. Let's leave it at that. Let's be a _beautiful_ part of each other's lives and let's move on, Clarke, please," she tacked on. "I don't want you to care about me. I don't want you to worry about me. I don't want you to think about me. I don't want you to _keep_ loving me."

"You can't say that –"

" _Why_ did you break up with me, Clarke?" Lexa interjected, her chest rising with the fervor of her words. She gestured at the empty room, wanting to smack the CT machine so it would just _stop humming_. "Look at where we are. Do you honestly think that you continuing to love me will do you any good?"

"What about you?" Clarke sobbed.

"I'll be fine," Lexa said curtly, nodding to both herself and Clarke. She didn't tell Clarke that she _had_ to. "Let me just tell you right now, Clarke, once and for all. I'll be fine. I'll be great at my job. I won't be flying to another warzone if this leg's any implication." She emphasized with a tap on aforementioned leg. "I'll live a long life. And so will you." She raised her brows and mustered a smile.  
"I love you."

With another nod, Lexa spun the wheelchair around, using all her strength to wheel herself out of the room. Wells was waiting outside, and his face told her that he was beyond curious; she supposed that was the nature of a doctor. Well, the CT scan was kind of a waste, because her heart was gone regardless, tucked safely in Clarke's hands for the rest of her life.

* * *

 **i'm not apologizing**


	20. compos mentis

**i suppose i should warn you that just because i managed to update rather quickly with the last two chapters doesn't mean it's gonna continue. i'm just not a consistent person.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

It almost seemed like nothing changed. She still had her job. There were still patients coming in and out in the ER. As a matter of fact, with the absence of Marcus and Finn, there was more to do for every doctor – the interim chief certainly didn't appreciate her taking so many days off at such a terrible time. The routine remained the same: going to work, going home, binge some Netflix, sometimes even hanging out with her friends.

It almost seemed like nothing changed, and yet, somehow _everything_ changed. She was talking with her mother again, albeit tentatively. Marcus had been demoted to a general attending, while Finn had his license definitively revoked. And she hadn't realized this before, but Lexa's appearance had changed her life _completely_. She hadn't realized how boring her life had been before the princess, how grey and _dull_ everything was.

And now, she was back to square one.

"Stop it." She lifted her gaze from the tumbler to find Bellamy mulling her over, unimpressed. She raised a brow in question. "I don't know what happened to you. Neither my girlfriend nor my sister wants to tell me anything. But this is a night of fun for friends, and your face is dragging everyone down with you," he said as he lifted his own eyebrows in return.

At his words, she cast her gaze across the table. While their friends were all happily indulging one another, there was definitely no missing the way their eyes kept flitting at her every once in awhile, especially from Raven and Octavia. There was certainly no missing the way Raven kept nudging her boyfriend's thigh, causing his thigh to nudge into hers, while engaging into a conversation with Wells.

She closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to ground herself, but it didn't work, because images of Lexa were just swirling behind her eyes. Despite the loudness of the bar, she could hear the piercing notes of Lexa's voice, laughter and sadness and anger and mischief all overlapping, cacophonic in her head. She could see Lexa, clear as day, so beautiful in her regality despite the sadness that enveloped her like a blanket.

 _I don't want you to_ _ **keep**_ _loving me_.

Right, well, this obviously wasn't working. Clarke opened her eyes and stood up abruptly, smiling apologetically for ruining the groove her friends had caught themselves in. "Sorry. I just –" She kept a whimper in and made to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Sorry," she repeated. "I'm a bit tired from the rotating surgeries I've been in today, so I'll just head on home. See you guys soon." She made sure to kiss Monty and Harper on the cheeks before hightailing out the door.

The bar was just a couple of blocks away from her place, so she figured she could use the walk home. Maybe some fresh air could help clear her head. She had only rounded a corner when she heard someone shouting her name, and she turned out to find Wells jogging towards her, his lips pinched.

"Wells?"

"I'll walk you home," he said, gently clutching her elbow to drag her along.

"What? No, it's okay. My place is just a couple of blocks away. You should join them. We haven't seen Monty and Harper in quite some time," she said, trying to bat him away.

"Exactly." Clarke blinked when the look on Wells' face had transformed into one of concern. He sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to walk in the direction of her apartment. "Look, there's something wrong with you. You've only had two surgeries today. Raven and Octavia wouldn't tell us anything, but I'm gonna assume that it's got something to do with the princess."

She snapped her gaze towards him, alarmed. "What are you –"

"Clarke," he pronounced succinctly with a raise of his brows. "I'm the son of a politician. I've learned how to read between the lines since before I could read words."

"Le – The princess has got nothing to do –"

"You don't have to tell me anything," he interrupted again, shrugging. "Let me just walk you home, because I'm your friend and I'm worried about you, okay? I don't need you to tell me everything or anything at all." He tightened his grip around her elbow and started dragging her gently again, his other hand in a pocket. "Come on. Let's go."

Understanding that there was no point in fighting, she relented. Her place _really_ was just a couple of blocks away, so it didn't take long for them to reach the building. It was a quiet walk, where neither of them spoke, but throughout the walk, Clarke's thoughts were warring inside in her head, struggling between questions and curiosity and ultimate heartbreak.

She just _missed_ Lexa fervently. And she couldn't help but think about that time when Lexa had waited for her outside the hospital, all dressed up in a sweater and a winter coat, with a baseball cap for good measure. It hadn't been much of a special walk, but it was a _loud_ bleep in her memories because that was, to be very honest, the one moment of normalcy between the two of them. Just a walk home between two girlfriends who were obsessed with one another.

Clarke and Wells stopped just by the entrance to her apartment building, and he had on an exceptionally pleased smile, as if managing to walk her home was a success. In what, she didn't know.

"The numbness is going to stay, an unfortunate side effect of cardiac arrests, I'm afraid. But it only extends up to her knee, so she'll still have some sort of mobility, all things considered," he said, deliberately not looking at her, like he was only spouting off common facts, like it had nothing to do with her apparently obvious concern for Lexa. "She's refusing physical therapy. Professionally, I advised against it, because I'm a doctor and we're supposed to look for solutions. Personally, I think it's for the best, because there's really nothing much we can do."

She wanted to pretend like the things he was saying were just that – facts about a patient they shared, never mind that the patient was one she could no longer touch or even see. "And her heart?" But she couldn't, was the point.

"Her heart is…" He squinted at the moonless sky for a bit, worrying his lower lip. "It's weak, I can tell you that. It's certainly – the royal administration's requested for me to visit the palace for a weekly checkup. Privacy and all that, you know. I have a feeling I'm gonna have to do that for the next year or so."

She blinked and sucked in a deep breath, nodding to herself at the new barrage of information. She couldn't really tell if they were good news or not. The Lexa she knew was _strong_ and unbelievably athletic, always seemed to be full of life, despite some of the shit that life had served her. Sometimes, Clarke wondered if life was jealous of Lexa – her upbringing, her beauty, everything about Lexa – that it decided to be mean to the princess in her still short life.

"Lucky for her though, the numbness seems to be the only side effect. Usually, people who suffer from cardiac arrests will end up memory loss and their intelligence taken down a notch or two."

Well, okay, maybe life wasn't so mean in that regard. Then again, Clarke would bet half of her life's savings that Lexa would probably want to suffer from memory loss.

"One last thing before you go in – and I'm saying this merely as a friend who has no idea what's going on," he added with a pointed look in her direction. "It's true, you know, when they say heartbreaks can really do things to your heart. And recent – shall I say – emotional events certainly haven't been kind to hers." Clarke clenched her jaw, her curious stare easily turning into a glare. He raised a finger at her. "Then again, like I said, I'm just a friend who has no idea what's going on, so what do I know?" It seemed like he'd gotten all the information necessary – even some unnecessary ones – dispensed with, as he deflated and smiled a little sadly at her. "Goodnight, Clarke."

She stared at his retreating figure, exceedingly lonely under the streetlamps. A politician's son, indeed.

* * *

She entered the ER as a state of bedlam, which she supposed she should have expected, because she'd only come in after her pager had buzzed incessantly. She remembered grumbling about deserving the two-day break after the shift she'd had, but she could understand the necessity now as she watched doctors – a lot of them not even trauma specialty – running amuck, yelling instructions like banshees and sweating waterfalls down their forehead.

The sleepiness from before had dissipated quickly as she was thrown into alert mode. A fellow ER attending had given her cliff notes as she pulled on the emergency scrubs. There was seven-car pileup down six blocks away, and this was the closest hospital they'd gotten. They still weren't sure if there was more coming. Clarke didn't wait and just threw herself at the first patient she saw, dragging the cot into a trauma bay and starting to do her job. She'd ended up with three back-to-back surgeries well into late afternoon.

In a sense, she was kind of grateful for it, even though she ended up losing a patient on the table. The situation had been mind numbing enough for her to not think about anything else but her job, and honestly, she would take any respite she could get. At the end of it all, she'd taken off the OR necessities, wiped the sweat off her face, and went down to the basement for some quietness. She was tired enough to just close her eyes and not think of anything, thankfully.

Well, that was, until she heard heavy footsteps coming from far down the supposedly empty hallway. Her eyes widened when she saw the three bodyguards slowly escorting Lexa. Gustus was also there, though he seemed unharmed apart from the bandage around his head and the slight limp to his gait. Anya was there too – Clarke suspected there was probably more undercover bodyguards strolling upstairs. And Lexa, well, Lexa was _trudging_ down the hall equipped with only a cane, no wheelchair whatsoever.

Clarke wanted to leap out of the discarded cot that she'd chosen to sit on, but Clarke also wanted to stay as invisible as possible and watch the love of her life pass her one last time.

And, well, the universe made a decision for her, because in between shuffling her numb leg and adjusting to her newly lost mobility, Lexa had raised her head with an expression of complete frustration and exhaustion to land on Clarke. At the same time, they froze where they were. Lexa's freezing was almost comical, what with how her entourage had frozen along with her, walking into one another and grunting a cacophony of noises in this otherwise peaceful basement.

The only one who didn't lose their composure at all was Princess Anya, first in line for the throne. Clarke resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the cliché-ness of it all. Plus, she didn't think she'd end up anywhere good if she really did roll her eyes, judging by the steeliness of the gaze with which Anya had decided to pin her down with.

"Dr. Griffin," Lexa greeted cordially. Right, only two people in her entourage knew the true nature of their relationship.

Clarke stood up from the cot and nodded at her. "Your Highness…es." Her gaze flitted guiltily to Anya, who'd only managed to narrow her eyes more, imagine that.

Lexa visibly blanched at that, which made Clarke kind of blanch at well. And their blanching had Gustus rolling his eyes upwards to the ceiling, while Anya was just trying to hide her confusion of it all. Apart from that, it almost felt like they were alone with each other, and the others were just…ornamental.

Badly, so badly, the blonde wanted to reach out and brush that stray lock of hair that had escaped Lexa's hastily pulled half ponytail. But in front of these bodyguards, in front of a visibly angry sister and a bodyguard who was probably think that he was right to be wary of her, Clarke knew there was no way. She took brief comfort in the fact that she could see the similar longing mirrored on Lexa's face.

It was minute, the transformation, but to Clarke, it happened in slow motion, starkly and so much like Lexa. She steeled herself with the way her shoulders kind of broadened and her leg kind of straighter. Her eyes had misted over somehow, like a barrier that Lexa had spent years to build up. She tightened her fingers over the top of the cane and nodded at Clarke furtively, and without another word, she just started trudging away again.

Anya didn't outwardly react or anything, but Clarke was pretty sure that under all that mask, she was sneering at her. Clarke thought about the things that Wells had told her only last night, and found a broken figure trying to make it through the rest of the hall. She collapsed back onto the cot and buried her face in her hands, letting the waterworks free.

* * *

"You know you're my best friend," Octavia told Clarke.

"Hey!" Raven protested.

"I'll always love you more," Octavia reassured the engineer.

"Wow, thanks, O," Clarke deadpanned, her eyes half-lidded in an unimpressed manner at her two friends.

Octavia swerved around and aimed her fork in the blonde's direction. "Hey, it's not my fault that your life's such a mess." She reached her free arm around Raven's shoulders and smacked a loud kiss to the side of her head. "Raven, on the other hand, has never disappointed me."

Clarke tilted her head, chewing her chicken pensively. "Isn't Raven the one sleeping with your brother?"

Raven cackled, getting almost every head in the restaurant to swivel around and look at her. Unashamedly, she raised an arm in the air and nodded confidently. "Yes, yes, I am. And I daresay that he's a _very_ good lay."

They hadn't seen each other after the last rare reunion with the rest of their friends, the one where she'd escaped early because she kept hearing Lexa in her head everywhere she turned, which had been a little over a week ago. And that was definitely Clarke's fault.

All she'd been doing since she witnessed what was apparently Lexa's discharge – unrecommended by Wells, after a pointed look in his direction later on – was burying herself with work. It seemed that seeing Lexa again had done something to her physique, where exhaustion was no longer a concept recognized. Okay, maybe it _was_ a concept she recognized, perhaps a little too well, but she'd somehow managed to transition all that exhaustion into…something else – she didn't quite know what, but it had definitely worked in her favor of keeping herself busy.

In between, she'd hide away back home or in an on-call room in the pediatrics wing, where Raven, Octavia, or her mother would never find her. Raven, because the engineer detested children and would never be caught dead near them, especially sick ones. Octavia, because she was a nurse and wasn't very adept with children, so Sydney would never station her there. Her mother, well, Clarke wasn't even sure if her mother knew pediatrics existed. The only way they knew she was still alive was her daily texts in the morning.

Miraculously enough, she'd managed to avoid her best friends while actually doing her work, which was something she appreciated. She wasn't sure she'd be able to handle their…presence in the meantime. It wasn't until yesterday, when she'd woken up in an on-call room and saw that her phone was devoid of texts, that she realized enough was enough. No more avoiding people who genuinely cared about her. No more pretending she was the only heartbroken person in the world.

She picked up her phone and texted Raven and Octavia, suggesting a dinner tonight. She also called her mother, suggesting a breakfast during the weekend at either of their hospitals.

And here they were.

Octavia retracted her arm from around Raven's shoulder and chose to pillow her face in that very hand, her groan loud but still pretty loud to attract disapproving glances from their neighbors. Clarke looked around the room with a tentative smile and a two-fingered salute, mouthing her apologies over and over again until they all looked away.

She turned immediately back to Octavia with a self-satisfied smile, flourishing her hands in Raven's direction. "I rest my case."

"You know it's not working, right?" Raven said after she'd gotten over her bout of self-pride for simultaneously getting her version of a good lay and embarrassing Octavia Blake, raising her brows pointedly at Clarke.

Clarke hummed, deliberate in her obtuseness, digging back into her dinner. "What's not working?"

"The asking us out to dinner as if you're good enough an actress to pretend that you're fine," Raven replied, smiling humorlessly at Clarke. She steepled her fingers with her elbows angled on the table, while Octavia had propped her chin in her palm.

Oh, good, two against one, just what Clarke needed.

"It's not working because it's not a thing I'm doing," Clarke lied cheerfully, chewing obnoxiously at her chicken.

Raven and Octavia shared a look, a look that seemed to speak multitudes but also nothing at all. Clarke supposed this was what she got for having distanced herself from them so much that she'd forgotten about their shared body languages. Since when did she become so bad at the friendship thing? She used to have it in spades.

"Okay, ask me how things are with Lincoln," Octavia challenged, her eyes narrowed in preparation.

Swiftly, Clarke's eyes darted away from them, and she knew right then that she had lost this little battle. But she wasn't ready to give up, so she carefully edged her finger around the lip of her wineglass while asking, "How are things with His Highness?" She forced herself not to swallow or recall the banter he and his sister had shared when they were first introduced.

"Say his name."

She clenched her jaw. "How are things with Lincoln?" She forced herself not to think about the semi-confession she'd made on the beach while Octavia had been frolicking around with her future beau and puppies.

"Now look at me while you ask."

Okay, now she was kind of regretting texting them at all. She was maybe also regretting the decision to not extend her shift, having thought that it was time to see her best friends. Obviously a terrible decision, given that they'd basically become experts of torment in their week of not saying each other.

Clarke inhaled sharply and obeyed half of Octavia's instruction by lifting her gaze. But as she opened her mouth, no words came out. She could find the words; they were right there. She just couldn't get them out, because in some way, asking about Octavia and Lincoln seemed to be the gateway to more waterworks that she had thought were done with. Her brows knotted at the bridge of her nose at her own weakness.

"It's okay," Raven said, having reached out to gently lay her fingers around Clarke's forearm. "We know it's totally a thing you're doing." Ironically, she didn't say it in a teasing way, but in a sympathetic way. "So, are you ready to talk now?" she asked gently.

"No."

Raven and Octavia exchanged a look again, reminding Clarke that she'd gotten a little offbeat with her friendships in recent times. She'd really got to change that. And then they both nodded simultaneously before turning back to her, with creepily mirroring smiles on their faces.

"Okay," Octavia said.

"Finish your dinner," Raven supplied. "You're not working tomorrow, right?"

"No, I'm off for the next two days. Why?"

"Oh, not much." Raven shrugged and dug into her own food.

Well, Clarke had learned enough about Raven Reyes and Octavia Blake to know that it wasn't just 'not much'. But she also hadn't sufficient energy to argue further. Truthfully, she was only grateful that they'd chosen not to pursue the subject further.

* * *

Goddamn it, she _should_ have argued. She should have argued and maybe she'd have been home by now, demolishing yet another brand-new tub of cookies and cream ice-cream. And yet, here she was, completely failing to gain control of her motor functions and needing a tall buff man to carry her home.

Inwardly, she was well aware that she was three sheets to the wind and this was no safe way to be going anywhere. Physically though, she was absolutely done for and there was nothing she could do about it. Her filter was definitively gone and her brain was spazzing in all sorts of direction, much to reminiscent of her party days back in the once upon a time.

The only way that she knew she was relatively safe was her brain's recognition of her best friends' voices, blurry in their coherence. Maybe they were as drunk as she was, but they didn't seem to be carried by anyone, so perhaps she was just drunker that she'd like to admit.

She forced her eyes open and took a sniff at the shirt of the man carrying her and frowned, unable to recognize the scent. Well, to be fair, the only scents she could undoubtedly recognize were the hospital, a trustworthy bottle of vodka, and Lexa. Oh, god, no, not Lexa. Sniff, sniff again. She could do it. She could use her superior sense of smell to recognize her chariot.

"I think she's sniffing me," her chariot said, probably to Raven and Octavia.

"Yes, I am!" she exclaimed, pulling back on her arms that were hooked around his neck.

Following that was a flurry of protests and a mild choking noise from the man whose back she was on. Raven was chastising in her ear while Octavia was apparently struggling not to laugh. She settled back onto her chariot and sniffed again, but he didn't say another word, perhaps worried that she'd accidentally suffocate him again.

She really wouldn't put herself past that. Before her relationship with her mother had deteriorated, they'd taken part in some self-defense classes. She'd learned some shit that she could never forget. Mount a man, choke a man. Though, now, she was kind of wondering why she hadn't choked Finn Collins in the first place; would have saved her quite a lot of trouble.

Okay, this chariot was not terrible. Maybe she should close her eyes and just enjoy the rocking motion. After what felt like a minute, she opened them again, and somehow, she was on her back and Raven was patting a wet towel over her forehead and Octavia was taking off her shoes. Far away in the doorway, Bellamy Blake was there, leaning against the door panel with a concerned look on her face.

When did he get here? She wanted to speak, but found her vision a little unfocused and her throat just a tad parched. Wow, everything was so heavy. Oh, was he her chariot? A little too tall, a little too wide. Not at all like the lithe and slightness that she had gotten too used to in just a short time. God, so pathetic.

"Seriously, what is wrong with her?" he asked as quietly as possible.

"Can't tell you," Raven said furtively, brushing Clarke's hair back in the meantime.

"The last time she was like this, Jake had just –"

"Don't say his name, Bellamy. My god, what is wrong with _you_?" the Latina hissed, momentarily taking a break from tending to Clarke's hair.

He looked to his sister, who had just shrugged with an innocent look on her face, having taking Clarke's shoes off and settled on Clarke's other side. "Don't look at me. You chose to love her," Octavia remarked, gesturing at Raven. "Get used to it."

Raven passed the wet towel over to Octavia and slid out of the bed to pad over to her boyfriend. Clarke watched as the woman lovingly cupped his cheeks with her hands and muttered a few quiet words to him, to which he replied with an annoyed but loving smile tugging at his lips. They shared a tender kiss before Bellamy shot Clarke one last look and left.

"Oh yeah, I can't believe I forgot to give my brother the shovel talk," Octavia murmured once Raven had sidled back to Clarke's side.

There was a moment of silence. "Shouldn't you be giving _me_ the shovel talk?"

"You already have a bum leg. Plus, men are stupid, they're always the ones doing shitty stuff."

"Amen."

More silence, in which Octavia had proceeded to lay the towel over Clarke's forehead and massaged her scalp, while Raven was just sitting there, holding her hand and massaging her joints. And then Raven heaved a sigh and asked, "You think she's gonna be okay?"

And somehow, amidst her alcohol addled mind and barely coherent thoughts, those were the words that had her going again. And simply because she'd lost her filter, she hadn't kept to the quiet that she had maintained over the past week, instead opting to wail her ugliest cry she could muster, dragging onto Raven's hand, then arm, then shoulders to wrap herself around the woman.

Raven had immediately wrapped herself back around the blonde and muttering 'are you okays' into Clarke's ear, hushing her at the same time. Octavia – no, Clarke didn't know what Octavia was doing, and she didn't much care. She just wailed into Raven's shoulder, expelling all her grief and sadness in a prolonged horrendous cry.

"I miss her so much," she hiccupped.

Her best friends were pensive for awhile, before Octavia placed a kiss on the back of Clarke's head and wrapped herself around Clarke as well, creating a sandwich between the three of them. Not another word was spoken, as they allowed Clarke to succumb to her drunken grieving.

* * *

Angry whispers woke her up. Angry whispers from her best friends. Angry whispers that were only making her head pound more. Angry whispers that subsided when she groaned aloud and threw her arms in the air in complain before she collapsed back into the comfort of her back, determined to fall back to sleep, preferably never waking up in this hellhole again.

God, when did she become such a bad drunk?

"We _can't_ tell her," Raven angrily whispered, as if the low volume of her voice was supposed to keep her down, given that they were standing in the same room as her and it was proving to be a quiet morning.

"She's gonna find out eventually!" Octavia angrily whispered in return.

"Look at her! She's a mess!"

"She was _already_ a mess!"

Okay, so she wasn't going back to sleep. Sighing and resisting the hammers that were gleefully pounding away in her brain, she dragged herself to sit upright, glaring at the women who'd gone quiet again. She eyed them, taking in the wariness and tension gripping their facial expressions and entire bodies. She narrowed her eyes and zeroed in on the phone clutched tightly in Raven's hand.

"Give me that," she demanded, extending her arm sluggishly in their directions.

"Um, just go back to sl –"

"Well, I'm gonna find out eventually, right?" she slurred, pointedly looking at Octavia. "So just give me it."

"Everything's fine, Clarke. No need to worry," Octavia offered with a pensive smile, so pensive it almost seemed like she was scared.

"You guys are too noisy and I can't very well go back to sleep now, can I? Not with me wondering what is it that you _don't_ want me to find out eventually," she grumbled and wiggled her fingers. "So just give me the damn phone before I really blow up at you. You know, hurricane Clarke, as you used to call it."

Octavia nudged Raven, warranting another nudge back. Raven was still clutching tightly to her phone, unwilling to let go, but apparently, Clarke's patent glare still worked scarily well, because Octavia just snatched the phone out of Raven's grip and threw it at Clarke. Raven yelped in protest, before she crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling, her lips mouthing words like prayers.

Clarke frowned at them. What could be so bad, really? It wasn't as if her life wasn't already a mess, as they'd put it eloquently. Rolling her eyes, she reached for the phone and looked at the screen, freezing in the process when she saw the _Polis Sentinel_ headline. See, this was why she hated life.

 _Old flames reunited? Princess Lexa spotted in palace garden with ex-girlfriend, Costia Greene_

* * *

 **i just _love_ wells, even though we didn't really get to know him enough on the show. expect to see more of him. oh, and yeah, costia too. BUT IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK...probably, maybe, perhaps, probmayhaps **


	21. pro se

**sorry, no reunion...yet.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy!**

* * *

Who would have thought? She took a trip to Libya, got ambushed, completely lost a portion of her left leg from her knee down, broke up with a woman whom she was sure was the love of her life…and winter had subsided to spring. And it did nothing but worsen her mood.

Her time as a soldier on active duty – a commander, at that – meant spending a majority of her time getting baked under a relentless sun. Even the nights were humid, a magnet for mosquitoes and flies and getting drenched in her sleep. And when she got discharged, she came right back to a Polis in the middle of autumn, and she'd grown a new appreciation of the biting cold that came with the seasons.

And now it was spring. The cold had dissipated. She couldn't swim anymore, not anytime soon. All she could do was stay awake throughout the night, because there was no way she could slip past her family's bedrooms and the workers and the security guards now that she had become so reliant on her cane, and then slide out of bed just before dawn to sit on the deck by the pool after sliding open the roof. And she couldn't even really enjoy it, because the cold didn't bite anymore.

She pushed past the resentment that hadn't stopped building even after the very incentivized talk with her father that day and just glowered at the horizon where she couldn't even see the sun rise because the building wasn't facing the right fucking direction. Her fingers began to absentmindedly massage her left thigh, as if it could push away the phantom pain.

Her ears were sharp though, so the moment the door to the deck clicked, she straightened. As she listened to the approaching footfalls, she relaxed again, waiting for her sister to join her on the other lounge chair. But Anya didn't join her on the other lounge chair; instead, she'd sat on the ottoman and gently lifted Lexa's left leg into her lap, pushing away the brunette's fingers to do the massaging herself.

"No, Anya –"

"It's fine," her sister whispered, ignorant to the guards – Gustus was still out of commission, king's orders – that had become cognizant of two princesses in the room and adding patrol around the area. "You didn't sleep," she further remarked, refusing to look in Lexa's direction.

Lexa refused to answer. She didn't try to protest again either. The last week had been nothing short of exhausting and disheartening, even though she hadn't really done anything but skulk around in her room and her office, actively avoiding routes or rooms that her parents could be found in.

This was a quiet morning, and she intended to relish it. Plus, spending time with her sister had never not turned out in her favor. She leaned back in the chair and just kept her half-lidded eyes on the skyline, watching it turn from violet to orange-blue to a stark orange.

Anya didn't say another word as her fingers worked on Lexa's leg. Moments later, Lexa heard the door creak again and stiffened, something that her sister picked up on as her eyes went cold for a bit at the door, only to warm up again. Lexa could recognize her new visitor by the footfalls again, so she relaxed…again. Her brother took up the other lounge chair, holding a tray of bread rolls, cheese platter, some fruits, and three cups of chamomile tea.

"Chamomile tea doesn't work on me," the veteran remarked, but smiled fondly at her siblings this time – obviously, they'd planned this.

"Don't read too much into things," Lincoln chastised, placing the tray on the folding table between the chairs. "And eat your food."

She obliged and picked up the bread slathered in butter along with some cheese. Her siblings followed, smiling slightly at the sight of their wounded sister not disobeying them for once, even though she was the youngest and she was supposed to listen to them, if hierarchy had ever counted in this family. They spent the next fifteen minutes or so gobbling up the food that Lincoln brought up, throwing glares at any guards who came too close to interrupting their morning together.

Eventually, her sister and brother got to bickering about wedding details and some politics, and Lexa just watched them. There was a discovery in there somehow, where she found out that since she came back, she hadn't really made any effort to spend time with them – just the three of them together, being absolute knuckleheads and dipshits, just like old times. A pinch of regret started slithering into her chest as she drank the tea that had absolutely no effect on her, eventually blossoming into a full-blown one when they turned to her.

Whatever they were talking about, she hadn't exactly paid attention to it. But as she looked at them, she could only voice an apology, soft and brittle.

"What for?" Anya asked.

"I haven't exactly been a very good sister, have I?" she pointed out.

The two of them shared a look, discussing something without even sharing a word, which was a very good proof that they'd been planning this for quite some time. It also served as a bigger proof that Lexa herself had become so absent in this palace, in her family's lives, that she couldn't even figure out what they were saying. Things used to be better, the three of them.

"You've been dealing with some stuff on your own. We can't exactly blame you for that," Anya offered, squeezing Lexa's calf.

"I was also in love."

Lincoln's eyes twitched. "We certainly can't blame you for that." He tilted his head with melancholic smile, seeing the truth in her words instantly, because the use of part tense could not be more inaccurate in her situation. "Though we definitely would have appreciated you opening yourself up a little more with us – if not with mom and dad, then me and Anya, you know," he added.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's just – the army, it's not –"

"Hey, I've said this before and I'll say it again: we don't care," Anya cut in in chastisement, squeezing Lexa's calf again. "You're my sister –"

" _Our_ sister," Lincoln corrected, throwing a look at their eldest sibling.

"Lincoln, that isn't really the point right now."

"Well, stop trying to claim monopoly on Lexa. She's my sister too."

"Yeah, but you're a dude. You wouldn't understand."

"Excuse me, who was the one who went to Libya to pick her up the first time she got injured? As I recall, _not_ you."

"Okay, how long are you going to hold that over my head?"

"For as long as I can."

"You're such a child."

"Yeah, it's not my fault you're old."

"How dare you –"

Their chatter was cut off when Lexa burst out in peals of laughter. Not even a generic laughter. Just her and her cup of half-finished tea, holding her stomach as she leaned back against the lounge chair in fits of breathlessness and genuine mirth, so loud and pure that even the guards nearby had to look at each other or pause in their movements to make sure she hadn't been doped off on laughing gas.

Anya and Lincoln were obviously taken aback from their sister's sudden outburst, forgetting their argument earlier as they watched Lexa in simultaneous wonder and concern. In the middle of all the wonder and concern was also adoration and reminiscence – it had been awhile. As they watched, one of them was thinking that perhaps the only person who'd seen this sight since she came back was none other than Clarke Griffin.

"Fine, _our_ sister," Anya relented, rolling her eyes.

"God, I missed you guys," Lexa said between breaths of chuckles.

Anya and Lincoln shook their heads and only leaned in to wrap her up in a three-way hug. The tea had ended up sloshing on all them as they tried to get into a tight embrace, and they would argue about it later, but not now.

* * *

"Back to square one," Lexa scoffed.

She shook her head at her therapist and extended an arm to grab the yellow stress ball just sitting on the desk. It had been one more week of recovery at home before Wells cleared her for mild activities that would be light on the heart.

In between, she'd dropped Niylah a call to brief her on the situation, claiming that she would still like to continue showing up if Niylah wouldn't mind – she'd only asked because Niylah had sounded surprised and perhaps even a little uncouth at the request. And now here she was, unable to get a read on the therapist whatsoever. Then again, she wasn't the one with the mental health degree here.

"I wouldn't say that," Niylah replied, clicking her pen every now and then. Lexa opened her mouth but Niylah stopped her as she held up a hand. "Look, before we start, I need to clear something up with you. And then you can decide whether you wanna retain me as your therapist, so as not to waste our time or money." Lexa frowned, tilting her head in confusion. "I was at the hospital."

First, it was confusion. And then, taking in the expression on Niylah's face, it dawned on her. She sat up straighter – well, as straight as she could be, figuratively and literally – and squeezed the stress ball _hard_. That wasn't possible. She thought the entire hospital had signed an NDA, and revealing anything about her condition would have been _treasonous_.

Except…one person didn't sign the NDA. She blinked once, twice, thrice – and eventually, a sense of frustration started to crawl up her chest. She clenched her jaw, eyes set straight on Niylah, despite the other woman's obvious discomfort with Lexa's stony face and lack of verbal response.

What on earth had Clarke been thinking? Sure, she wasn't royalty, but they were together enough for her to understand _at least_ the basic workings of the royal family and their public lives. Everything had to be curated carefully so they always appeared united and a stronghold in an otherwise small country.

There was a reason her initial injury had been downplayed so much and her second one had been hidden from the media entirely. There was a reason why her sister and Roan had to keep their relationship so secretive until the very last minute. There was a reason why Costia had broken up with her in the first place. There was a reason why she had kept Clarke so blind under the hood that she had – well, she'd gone and told _someone_ before the administration could even wrap their heads around it, apparently.

"Clarke needed…a friend – she was in a very bad mental place, and she needed my help," Niylah further explain when Lexa remained quiet. "I can't tell you much about our conversation, but I can reassure you that I haven't told anyone anything."

Lexa didn't need to be a genius to know what Clarke and Niylah had talked about, considering they'd broken up only a couple of hours later. She clenched her jaw tighter and willed herself to continue sitting there, but shook her head in the end and struggled to grab for her cane and stand up, throwing a glare at the therapist when she tried to help.

She hobbled towards the door, but before heading out, she stiffly asked, "You signed an NDA, right?"

Niylah could only nod. Lexa nodded in return and hobbled right out, ignoring a bodyguard's offer of assistance as she sidled down the hallway. Passing a display cabinet, she paused and took a close look at one of the photos, where it clearly showed Niylah and Clarke wearing their mortarboards with their rolls in hands. She kind of wanted to smash the entire cabinet to the floor. She supposed she probably would have if it wasn't a familiar voice calling out to her.

"Lexa?"

She looked away from the photo and pushed down the swirling combination of frustration and ache in her chest to focus on the latest call for her attention. She blinked at the owner of the voice, her grip weakening on the cane.

"Huh," she whimpered.

Costia.

* * *

It was impossible to just get a drink at a café around the corner. Lexa had never been able to do that her whole life – not with Costia as her girlfriend, not with Clarke as her girlfriend, not as herself, and certainly not with Costia as the very famous ex-girlfriend who became the catalyst of Lexa's outing. There was really no other option but to get in the car with her ex-girlfriend and drive home.

Part of her wanted to wave and bid goodbye to the woman who broke her heart rather thoroughly years ago. Ultimately though, Lexa was raised to be polite, cordial, fit to be a princess, which she kind of threw out the window once she penned her name on the signup sheet. Plus, Lexa would have been a fool to not admit that she had wondered about Costia and where she had ended up after their inevitable breakup.

So to the palace they went.

The entire car ride was spent in silence. Back in the day, they would have taken advantage of it, allowing teen hormones to get the better of them and putting the driver in a highly uncomfortable mood. Back in the day, Lexa had never been afraid of silence with Costia Greene. Well, that was back in the day; Lexa had someone else in mind now, someone else who similarly no longer wanted her.

She couldn't help but smirk sardonically at the thought, getting a curious look from her ex-girlfriend, to which she only shook her head and turned her attention out the window. It was different to see the city from inside a car. Everything was so detached and…fast. She looked away when they passed by the park that she had frequented, knowing that they were close to the palace.

The driver rounded the fountain in front of the front door and opened the door for Lexa. She smiled gratefully at him as she got out, whispering to him to help Costia out of the car as well. Costia rounded the car and met up with her, still awkward as ever.

Lexa glanced at the building looming over them and briefly recalled Costia's relentless nervousness whenever she came by. She gestured at the east garden as the car started to pull away. "Wanna go for a walk?" she asked, first words she'd uttered since inviting Costia to return with her.

The relief spreading across Costia's face was answer enough, so off to the east garden they went. "It's been a long time, huh?"

"Seven years, give or take," Lexa replied with a small smile.

Costia hummed. "Seven years ago, you were the girl I was in love with," she started. Lexa was honestly a little surprised that she felt nothing save for a little nostalgia at the words. "And now, you're a _veteran_."

Lexa laughed slightly and tilted her head. "Heard about that, huh?"

"The whole country heard about it," Costia replied with a little laugh herself. "Though I have to admit I wasn't that surprised when I heard that you enlisted." Lexa made a noise of curiosity, and Costia shrugged in response. "I mean, you've always appeared to me a really restless person. There's no way you can just stay put and make do with bureaucracy and diplomacy that come with the title."

The princess blinked at Costia's…accurate assumption. Well, she supposed a couple of years of being in love with each other could only mean that they would always know each other. Speaking of knowing each other, Lexa asked, "So I guess you're a lawyer now?"

"About to make partnership."

"Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"You're in therapy?"

"I can afford it."

Somehow, they ended up closing in on a gazebo. Not just any gazebo, apparently. The one where Costia had broken up with Lexa seven years ago. Together, they stopped and gazed up at it, undoubtedly having the memories return to them. Lexa could almost see the silhouettes of younger them, leaning on opposite banisters, Costia crying and Lexa stoic.

Earlier, at the clinic, she had been hesitant in reconnecting with Costia again, despite the other woman's request. But now, as she took in the gazebo that she realized she hadn't thought about since she met Clarke Griffin, it occurred to her that this wasn't so bad. Because all in all, Costia had been a good friend despite everything. A terrific friend, to be honest – Lexa's best friend in high school before they had started dating.

And this gazebo – this gazebo no longer hurt her heart. She didn't know what better testament there was other than this.

"I broke my leg," she confessed, tapping her cane on the ground a couple of times, refusing to look at the lawyer.

"I can tell."

"I got honorably discharged. Forever."

"That's kind of what it means."

"I'm now a full-time princess."

"Oh, Lexa, you're full-time a lot of things, but never a princess."

"I fell in love."

This time, Costia had nothing to say for a few moments, letting Lexa's confession hang in the air. The princess still didn't want to look at her ex-girlfriend, opting to hobble into the gazebo, gritting her teeth at the discomfort shooting up her muscles. Costia followed, and they leaned against opposite banisters, not unlike that time when they broke up.

"She cute?" Costia finally asked, wary and tentative in her question, but Lexa could tell it wasn't because she was jealous – they were long past that – it was more like she couldn't quite gauge what Lexa was trying to say when she admitted that her heart had been stolen.

Resting back against the banister to give her leg a brief moment of reprieve, Lexa looked at Costia but saw Clarke instead. More specifically, the Clarke that she first saw when she woke up in a rundown hospital room on the other side of the world, haggard and awkward and oh so mesmerizing.

Lexa was done for the moment she saw those blue eyes, she realized now. Sure, she might have been a little grumpy at the time, but she was done for. She couldn't quite understand why she had asked Clarke to stay with her that night, since she wasn't much of a people person and had always preferred to be by her lonesome, especially when she'd just realized that chances were high that she was going home and never coming back. She didn't even really understand it when she saw Clarke again six months later at the park.

And it was now, in front of the woman she once loved after the woman she currently loved had dumped her, that she realized why she had asked Clarke to stay with her that fateful night.

The veteran smiled and shrugged with a sheepish nod. "The cutest," she offered.

Costia's smile widened. She pushed away from the banister to make her to Lexa's side. She bumped their shoulders together and said, "It's good to see you again, Lexa."

"You know, I think I would have been a lawyer if I wasn't a princess."

Costia laughed and moved to wrap her arm around Lexa's shoulders. "Yes, I'm sure you would have."

Lexa leaned into her old friend's warmth and closed her eyes, sky blue clouding her vision. "It's good to see you again too, Costia."

* * *

See, there was nothing even _remotely_ romantic about her and Costia's romp in the park. If there was any reunion, it was only between two old friends who hadn't seen each other in forever, and the truth was that Lexa _had_ always liked the camaraderie between the two of them. Other than Anya and occasionally her father, no one really understood Lexa's personality like Costia did.

But of course, the public wouldn't take it that way. _Polis Sentinel_ wouldn't take it that way, because that paper seemed to always have the nose of a hound whenever Costia was even remotely in her orbit. Honestly, she was even starting to forgive the paper for almost tearing her life apart all those years ago, and now they could kiss that forgiveness goodbye. She didn't hate media, per se, they were just doing their job, but _Polis Sentinel_ was a different story.

" _How_ did they even take the _photos_?" Lexa demanded, confronting her parents for the first time since she'd returned to palace. "I thought we have security in place. _Heavy_ security. Is Gus the only one who does his job around here?"

"Lexa, watch it," Richmond warned, though even he himself looked a little miffed.

"They didn't," Lincoln cut in, holding up a hand as a gesture of placation at their parents. "Our security _is_ tight." When he went quiet, she just raised her brows and widened her eyes, hoping to convey her lack of patience at having to be in this room and make Wells wait in the sitting room.

"It's one of the gardeners. Security found copies of the photos on her phone. She sold it to _Sentinel_ to make some quick cash," Anya took over, scrolling through her phone and then showing the gardener's profile to Lexa. "We fired her. Mom and dad are thinking of suing her for violating her contract."

"Great, not even the palace is safe now," Lexa complained, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

"This palace is always safe. It's your home," her mother insisted.

"It's not my home," Lexa shot off a little too quickly, only realizing the implication of her words once she spoke the last syllable.

She kept her eyes closed and her fingers on the bridge of her nose, feeling her hairs already rising from the way her family's staring at her intently; she pondered at her options, whether to be honest or lie, like she always did. But then she remembered her father imploring her to be honest with them all those months ago, her mother pretty much begging her to stay, her siblings bringing her breakfast at the crack ass of dawn – all these to show her they cared.

"My title took my home away," she decided, softly and tiredly.

There was the sound of someone shuffling and another sniffling. She opened her eyes to find that her mother's eyes were red and her father had left his seat to stand at the window. Behind her, Anya had her eyes closed and Lincoln was quietly shaking his head. She sighed and shrugged to herself – they asked her to be honest.

Storme opened her mouth, as if to continue protesting Lexa's claim, but she closed it again, like she'd decided against it – Lexa was sure that she was just delaying her speech for a better time, a time when Lexa didn't look like she was trapped whenever she was in the same room as the royal couple.

"Are you…and Costia…" Stormed drifted off, her eyes flitting around uncertainly.

Lexa heaved a sigh and stood up with the support of her care. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Who the hell do you take me for?" she spat out and swiveled on her feet, nearly toppling over but steadying herself as she walked out of her father's office.

"Seriously, mom?" she heard Anya muttered behind her as she as well as slammed the door closed.

She stood outside and ignored Rachel's hovering presence as she fished for her phone and exited the tabloid site that she'd seen first thing in the morning and nothing else. It had been a pretty hectic morning, where she didn't even get to sit by the poolside and watch the sunset. As soon as she saw the headline, she'd immediately woken her family up and forced them to convene with her in her parents' office. She hadn't seen or heard much else, being too distracted with the new intrusion in her life to really care.

So right now, knowing that her family had done what they could to curb the spread of the fire, though not much could be done now, she decided to get caught up. There were two missed calls from Costia, as expected, and Lexa would have called her back if it wasn't for the voicemail notification from…Clarke.

She frowned. Her eyes darted up to see Rachel for the first time, who froze at being looked at directly by a princess – honestly, it didn't seem like Rachel would ever stop fidgeting in the presence of the royal family; Lexa made a note to talk to Gustus about it. She looked back down at phone, and frowned deeper at the notification that seemed as real as the headline she saw this morning. Licking her lips, she put some distance between her and her assistant and proceeded to listen to the voicemail.

" _Hi, Lexa_ ," Clarke slurred. Was she drunk? "I'm – I'm making this call in the bathroom of The Ark." That was the newly opened club that Anya had mentioned that one time. Okay, so Clarke _was_ drunk. "I don't know what I expected, but your voicemail is probably it." Clarke was so quiet for so long that Lexa had to check to see if the voicemail was still running. "I miss you, you know. I miss you _so much_ ," the doctor's voice had taken on a melancholic edge. "I know – I know it's unfair. I know. I'm the one who…" Clarke started hiccupping and sobbing at the same time, which sounded hideous, but Lexa stayed on, her jaw clenched and her heart dropping. "I hate you, Lexa Woods. I hate you for barging into my life and making me save you that night. And then you just took over everything and you didn't give them _back_." And then Clarke started chuckling bitterly, and Lexa thought about the love of her life hating her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be saying this. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, who am I kidding? _I love you_ ," she muttered.

" _Clarke? Clarke, are you in there_?" someone started shouting on the other end, accompanied with ferocious banging. Lexa recognized the voice as Raven, the woman who escorted her to an on-call room that time she visited the hospital. " _Clarke, answer me_."

"Shit," the blonde muttered. There was some shuffling and clicking noises. And then, "Raven, do you know how to delete a voicemail?"

" _What_?" More shuffling and tapping. "Oh fuck, Clarke, you _didn't_."

And the voicemail clicked off.

Gingerly, Lexa lowered the device from her ear and stared at the voicemail. The vitriol and drunken voicemail that pretty much simultaneously berated and adored Lexa within just five minutes. In her mind, there was a muffled picture of Clarke hiding in a club bathroom, phone sloppily held to her ear, makeup rundown and cheeks red.

Her finger hovered over the red button that would obliterate the voicemail to mountains of trashed data in the netherworld. A huge part of her wanted to just abandon her appointment with Wells and get in a car to drive in Clarke's direction. But things weren't that simple. Things were never simple in her life. They had broken up, and for good reasons, at that. Lexa had done enough.

But that didn't mean she couldn't be selfish. She saved the voicemail and hurriedly pocketed it before she turned around and started striding towards where Wells was waiting for her. If the voicemail was to be the only way she could ever listen to Clarke's voice again, she would take it to her grave.

* * *

 **i have a plan i swear - well, something looks vaguely like a plan. look it's not my best moment ok**


	22. ex silentio

**you might be wondering how i managed to whip this one out so fast. well, my dog who's been with me for the last 12 years had recently passed away, and because of the lockdown situation, i couldn't be with her in her last days, so right now, the grief is very strong.**

 **but i need a distraction, and what's a better distraction than writing a fic, right?** **yeah, so with that in mind, i should also warn you that there's a lot of texting in this chapter. also yeah, i'm not okay at all.**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy, i guess**

* * *

"There's something else I need to tell you."

"Nope."

Clarke turned away from Raven, cupping a cup of precious coffee in her hands as she deliberately stared at the black screen of the television. Objectively, she knew that it would be more convincing if she had actually turned the thing on, but Raven and Octavia knew her so well that they'd see right through her.

"Clarke, it's important." Her best friend shuffled over on the carpet to sit right in front of Clarke, who was situated on the couch. "You'd probably hate me more if I _don't_ tell you."

"I probably won't," the blonde shot back, shifting her gaze to her darkened reflection in the coffee.

Currently, Clarke Griffin was nursing a hell of hangover from too much alcohol and not enough sleep. She was also getting kind of lightheaded with her concentrated efforts to just wipe out the headline she saw this morning and go on with her life. She had avoided her phone since she saw missed calls from her mother and Wells this morning, but they didn't know that she was off for the next two days.

Never had Clarke ever been so grateful that she didn't have to go back to work. These two days would serve to be important; she had decided that she would take the next two days to recuperate and recollect herself. After this, she would return to the hospital and everything would be normal. She was determined to cut away all emotional baggage that she was lugging around with her – it was not conducive to her job or herself.

The truth was she did feel a little betrayed when she read through the news, because part of her was wondering how Lexa could move on so quickly after claiming to have loved Clarke so much. But after she had her coffee and took some aspirin, she became rational enough to understand Lexa had every right to move on – after all, Clarke was the one who initiated the breakup in the first place. So the one who didn't have any right should be her.

She recalled learning the truth about Costia Greene some time ago and thinking that she would love to meet the woman in person so that Clarke could give her a dressing down for missing out on a great woman like Lexa Woods. Meet Clarke Griffin, everyone, the biggest hypocrite in all of Polis. Lexa had every right to move on, and since Clarke was the one who had to force the princess to move on, it only seemed right that she had to let things go herself eventually.

Well, she was expecting to have some peace while doing that, but Raven had insisted on staying with her, as if Clarke would break at any second. Octavia had reluctantly allowed herself to be chased back to work after making coffee, because Clarke honestly could not take one more second of their smothering, no matter how grateful for them she was.

"It's about…her," Raven pushed on.

"What else is there about her that you can possibly tell me?" she snapped, her thread of patience growing thin.

Raven gulped and scratched the back of her neck. "Well," she started, hesitantly, "Octavia and I lost sight of you for like two seconds last night, and you went hiding in the bathroom. And we kind of forgot to confiscate your phone." She narrowed her eyes a little and looked away from Clarke sheepishly. "So, uh, you…might have…" She stuttered, scratching the back of her neck again.

"I might have…" Clarke prompted, raising her eyebrows. But before Raven could continue, it all caught up to her. Her eyes went saucer wide and she straightened on the couch, the coffee sloshing all over to stain the couch and the carpet. " _Oh no_ ," she hissed.

"Uh, yes."

Clarke placed the cup on the coffee table and leaped from the couch, almost stepping on Raven in the process, and pretty much sprinted to her bedroom to grab her phone. Her fingers fumbled and she mistyped her passcode twice, but eventually, she managed to find her call log and gasped at the first name at the top.

" _Oh no_ ," she whimpered, Lexa's name large and jarring on her screen. This was a nightmare. She swiveled around to find Raven propped against the door panel, her expression a mixture of a wince and bemusement. "What did I say? What have I done?" she exclaimed in a state of panic. _Fuck_.

"Honestly, I don't know what you said. The club was really loud," Raven replied, edging into the room."

"Oh my god, what the fuck did I _do_?"

"Hey, hey, Griff, hey." Raven clasped onto Clarke's forearms and shook her a little to get her to focus. "You need to calm down, okay?" The blonde started shaking her head viciously, her hand trembling. "No, you need to calm down. It's a drunk dial. Everyone makes that mistake at least once in their life."

"I need to call her," Clarke decided.

" _No_." The Latina snatched the phone and stuffed it in her back pocket. "Clarke, you already called her _once_ and it could have been a disaster. Calling her again is not a good idea." She steered the blonde towards the bed and sat her down, holding on to her shoulders for good measure. "You know, I've heard that when you wanna get over someone, you only have to get under –"

" _Raven_ ," Clarke snapped, shoving her friend's hands away and propping her forehead in her hand.

"Right, sorry, but don't call her." Raven sat next to Clarke and gingerly fished out the phone. "Maybe just start with, like, a text?"

Staring at the phone, Clarke started composing words in her head that didn't sound too needy and desperate, but she supposed her voicemail probably sounded the most desperate and neediest she had ever been, even though she could hardly remember anything she said. Nothing in her head sounded like the right message for an ex-girlfriend with whom she was still painfully in love with.

Her chest heaved with a sigh and she took the phone, flipping it in her hand. Honestly, it would be great if she could just flip the phone out the window and forget it ever existed. But she couldn't, because this phone had photos and videos and a contact number that would always serve as a connection to Lexa, one way or another.

Only more than a week ago, Lexa had made her promise that she would never walk in again after walking out for the last time. She wondered if drunk-dialing her and subsequently texting her would be a breach of that two-person contract. She wondered if Lexa had heard the voicemail. She wondered _what_ she said in the voicemail. She wondered whether that voicemail would make Lexa hate her more than she did now.

* * *

 _Clarke (12:34p.m.): Hey, I know we're not supposed to talk to each other again, but I just wanna apologize for last night. I was drunk and out of line, sorry._

 _Lexa (12:46p.m.): I think I prefer it when you had horrendous text speak._

 _Clarke (12:46p.m.): ure probs the only 1_

 _Lexa (12:50p.m.): There you go_

 _Clarke (12:51p.m.): i cant b sure if ure mocking me or wat_

 _Lexa (12:53p.m.): I said I prefer it, didn't I?_

 _Clarke (12:54p.m.): well anyways, like i said, im sorry for…u knw_

 _Lexa (1:00p.m.): Don't be. You were drunk. I liked it._

 _Clarke (1:02p.m.): rite, well, hope ure doing better_

 _Lexa (1:02p.m.): You too, Clarke._

* * *

Something changed after the texts. Something small; something minuscule; something that didn't really change much; something entirely too big and too important and too hard to ignore.

Raven would never let her forget the way she had jumped and squealed at the top of her lungs when Lexa's reply came in only minutes after her own, a simple and well collated reply to a text that she spent over twenty minutes suffering a migraine over. In fact, Raven filmed it and shared it with Octavia – she would have shared it with the rest of their friends had they not been the only two people in her life who truly knew the depth of her relationship with Lexa – so it was definitely one for the books now.

But things changed. After more than one week of radio silence, sadness and reminiscence, one awkward encounter in a hospital basement, and a drunk voicemail, Clarke and Lexa kind of…rebuilt communications. It wasn't much, not really. And Clarke had really thought that the conversation would have just ended there and they'd go on with their lives, until Lexa texted her randomly again one morning.

 _Lexa (6:04 a.m.): Did you know McDonald's delivers to the palace? Wild._

Clarke had just taken a quick shower after an emergency surgery and was wrapped up in a towel when she saw the text. And she would deny this to anyone who asked, but she definitely slipped and fell on her ass once she saw the person responsible for the annoying chime. And she would also deny this, but she felt kind of exposed reading a text from her best orgasm giver wrapped in nothing but a towel.

She didn't read the message – please, she wasn't entirely technologically inept, despite Raven's persistent taunts. She just stared at it and deliberated on whether Lexa was high off pain meds, but she also knew Lexa had built up quite the tolerance after her stint in the army. She then wondered if Lexa was still too sleepy in the morning, and recalled that Lexa was kind of an anytime person. In the end, she decided she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

 _Clarke (6:12 a.m.): i feel bad for the deliveryman. imagine delivering mcd bfast 2 a princess. i might faint if i wre him_

The text bubble showed up and disappeared and showed up and disappeared. The sequence went on repeat for quite some time, so much so that she left the phone on the bench and started putting on her scrubs to get back on duty. She had a feeling that Lexa had something witty in her mind, something dirty, because it was definitely what Clarke was thinking as soon as she sent that text.

The deliveryman might have delivered breakfast to a princess, but Clarke fucked a princess. Multiple times. A variety of positions. Many places in her apartment and outside her apartment, for that matter.

But it was too soon. Too fresh for that kind of teasing. Perhaps it would always be too soon and too fresh.

 _Lexa (6:16 a.m.): Well, security told me he wanted to know if the palace was haunted, and she promptly asked him who did he think ordered the meal in the first place_

Yeah, Clarke would take that. She would take that over forever of nothingness. She would take whatever could be given without smudging the lines. She would take Lexa in whatever capacity she could get.

* * *

 _Lexa (8:12p.m.): Did you know that Wells is my childhood friend? Well, kind of. I think it counts._

 _Clarke (8:13p.m.): WAT_

 _Lexa (8:20p.m.): His dad tried to matchmake us when we were kids. I was already out, mind you._

 _Clarke (8:26p.m.): i cnt blieve he didnt tel me this b4 hold on 1 sec im gonna kill him_

 _Lexa (8:26p.m.): This country doesn't condone homicide, Clarke_

…

It wasn't forgiveness, either from her or from Lexa. The history was too thick in the air that it would be impossible to just wave everything away from a few text conversations. Every time Clarke composed a text to Lexa, it would be with heavy deliberation and careful teetering over the alphabets to make sure they didn't cross the line of acquaintances. And she could feel in reciprocation, through the stilted language of her texts, lacking the carefreeness that used to be the essence of their relationship.

…

 _Clarke (3:09 a.m.): this man jst came in w glass in his eyes n i cant blieve its the simplest case this shift_

 _Lexa (3:16 a.m.): Well, you saw my innards and you were still attracted to me. That says something, I think._

 _Clarke (3:18 a.m.): y r u awake lexa woods ure injured ffs go 2 bed_

 _Lexa (3:19 a.m.): I was until a rude bitch woke me up with a text complaining about a man with glass in his eyes_

 _Clarke (3:20a.m.): wow kbye then ive got a man to remove glass from_

…

Whenever there was a text, she leaped on it like a hungry hyena. Raven and Octavia had started looking at her differently, but she didn't exactly tell them that she had started talking with Lexa again, if this could count as talking. The texts were not often and had never really expanded into the other day, but it had been a week of staggered texting, and Clarke, well, Clarke just wanted to hear Lexa's voice, even in typed words.

…

 _Clarke (1:10 a.m.): jst realized that cowboys go yee haw n ninjas go hee yaw_

 _Lexa (5:43 a.m.): I can't believe you saved my life twice_

 _Clarke (5:54 a.m.): its the 36 hr shift i swear_

* * *

Things still hurt though, because things always hurt. Just like how Lexa was a princess; like how the royal family would always be under scrutiny; how they were under more scrutiny due to the impending wedding of their beloved Princess Anya; how that meant Lexa's life was under heavier scrutiny as a result.

And that meant the headline she saw that morning was only first among many. Clarke had always only relied on two media outlets in this country and avoided other tabloids. And since meeting Lexa, she'd also sworn off _Polis Sentinel_.

But it was like her phone was sentient or something. Because the more she thought about it and the more she avoided seeing it, they just kept showing up. The palace issuing statements, theories about the princess' supposed relationship with Costia, recaps of their past together, and even more recent sightings of Lexa herself hanging out with her ex-girlfriend.

Lexa herself didn't release any statements or say anything to the media, but these outings with Costia seemed deliberate, like extending a figurative middle finger to the _Polis Sentinel_ in particular. And it still hurt, because Lexa loved Costia once; who was to say she won't again?

And who was to say Clarke had any right to even be sad about it?

* * *

Her phone buzzed on the table, and Raven and Octavia shared a look – it was a look that they always shared whenever they were about to do something mischievous. Clarke narrowed her eyes and, thankfully enough for her reflexes, reached out to grab the device before Octavia could make a break for it.

"Is this healthy?" Raven asked, waving a fork in her direction.

They rarely had lunch breaks together, so now that an opportunity had arisen, the three of them had gathered in the cafeteria to fill up their stomachs before going back to inevitably busy work. Well, busy work for Clarke and Octavia; Raven had only stayed behind to grab a bite with them.

It had been two weeks since Clarke and Lexa started texting again. And while her best friends initially didn't know who she'd been texting, they'd quickly figured it out, because according to them, no one made her smile like that, not even when she'd first gotten an offer letter from Silver Hill after returning from Libya.

"It's just texting," Clarke proclaimed, shoving the phone in her pocket without really looking at the text.

"You're literally vibrating," Octavia observed, squinting at her. Clarke picked up her utensils to stop herself from fidgeting. Damn them for knowing her so well, because she really did want to just bolt out of here and see what Lexa had to say in private. "Is this healthy?" Octavia echoed Raven's sentiment.

"It's just texting," Clarke repeated, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, with the girl you were hopelessly in love with." The blonde looked down at her phone and purposely shoved a huge spoonful of salad into her mouth. "Wait, my mistake, _still_ hopelessly in love with," the nurse corrected.

Clarke looked up just in time to see Raven nudging Octavia in the ribs with her elbow, so violently that the woman actually started coughing on her lunch and almost choked on it. Once she regained her composure, Octavia just nudged Raven back, which kind of pulled the two of them into a nudging war, eliciting yelps and curses so loud that they started attracting their colleagues' attention.

The two of them were too absorbed in attacking each other to notice, so all Clarke could do was shoot the rest of the room an apologetic smile and a shrug, because they were Clarke and Raven and Octavia. And this trio was kind of known for their unconventional antics, in or out of the building, which was kind of an embarrassing reputation to have, given that they were considered newbies here.

"Will you two stop it? We're at work!" Clarke chastised, reaching out to smack both of them on their shoulders. "You guys are like children."

"Wrong. I have too much sex to be a child," Raven immediately offered, and Octavia immediately choked on her food again.

"I don't wanna know," Octavia said between dry coughs. She redirected her attention to the blonde and pointed a fork at her. What was it with them and forks today? "What I do wanna know is how you're supposed to move on when you're still in contact with your ex. Lincoln told me that his sister's been…brighter recently, but he still hasn't figured out why yet – bless his sweet adorable soul – and what I do wanna know is how you're supposed to move on from each other when you're still in contact with each other."

Clarke froze at the inquiry, because it was exactly the kind of inquiry that she wanted to avoid since they found out who she'd been texting.

When she broke up with Lexa, it was because she was certain that she didn't have the emotional capacity to endure the situations Lexa would put herself in because she was _dutiful_. She already lost a father; she didn't want to become her mother. And while she'd never seen firsthand how the palace or the royal family worked, she'd heard enough from Lexa to grow more than a little afraid of getting involved with the whole thing.

Plus, she still wasn't sure she had it in her to forgive the King and Queen of Polis, though they were inarguably the most lauded monarchy in centuries of this kingdom's construction. They were good leaders, but they had yet to show her that they were good parents. And she knew that she didn't have any right to intercept or even judge them, but their daughter was the love of her life, so there.

As she was devising ways to deviate the conversation away from her love life, her pager beeped, along with Octavia's. Well, she could easily say she'd never been so grateful for a trauma. She abandoned her food and leaped out of her seat with Octavia.

"Duty calls," she chirped and practically hopped out of the cafeteria to get away from Raven and Octavia as possible.

The thing was, even after having broken up and understanding that it was the best decision she could make for herself for now, she also understood that there was no moving on from Lexa woods. Not for a long time. Not ever. Not completely.

* * *

 _Lexa (12:34 p.m.): It's not like what they say, you know._

Clarke frowned at the message as she sat on her couch and nursed a cup of late-night chamomile tea. That one case that had gracefully interrupted her brief get together with Raven and Octavia had abruptly extended into many, a whole fuck ton, so much so that she only got to go home two hours after her shift was supposed to be done.

Things had become so busy that she completely forgot about Lexa's text, until she came home and took a long shower to wash off all the sweat and bacteria and remembered the things Lexa had once done to her in this very bathroom. And now here she was, reading a cryptic text from her ex-girlfriend and wondering if the princess had sent it to the wrong person.

 _Clarke (9:09 p.m.): sry had bz day at the hosp. also, wat?_

She tried to think about who said what, but came up blank. She turned on the television to take her mind off of waiting for Lexa's reply, but Ted was only being a typical asshole and she didn't want to recall how disappointed she'd been when she saw the finale of the show. Fuck Ted Mosby, was the point.

 _Lexa (9:13 p.m.): The papers._

 _Clarke (9:13 p.m.): im confused_

 _Lexa (9:15 p.m.): It's not an old lovers' reunion._

Oh. _Oh_. Clarke blinked at her phone rapidly, Robin fading out in the background. She looked up and out the window, staring at the cat that had found itself in a tree and staring right back at her. She brushed her hair back and acknowledged the pounding of her heart and the relief on her shoulders.

She cleared her throat and went back to her phone.

 _Clarke (9:16 p.m.): i see  
Clarke (9:16 p.m.): u dnt hv 2 explain urself 2 me yknw_

 _Lexa (9:19 p.m.): I know, but I also feel like I have to, for some reason._

 _Clarke (9:19 p.m.): im glad tho_

 _Lexa (9:19 p.m.): ?_

 _Clarke (9:20 p.m.): glad u hv a friend amidst all these_

She worried her lower lip and watched as Lexa read her message but didn't say anything back. Her thumbs hovered over her screen. When she looked out the window, the cat was still staring at her, as if challenging her to stop being a fucking coward.

Oh, fuck it.

 _Clarke (9:22 p.m.): n mayb that it's not an old lovers' reunion_

She could just attribute it to exhaustion and chemical fumes getting to her brain if anyone asked, anyway.

* * *

 **idk when the next update will be - maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe next year. i don't know, i'm grieving**


	23. acta non verba

**first of all, i wanna thank you guys for your kind words in the last chapter. it's kind of nice to know that there are people who can relate to the loss i'm feeling right now. i don't really know if i'll ever get over it - maybe not. i'm not even sure if i'm better, i just miss her really much. but the show's gotta go on, right?**

 **now, read, ponder, and enjoy**

* * *

Spring had arrived, somehow unnoticed by someone who was usually so attuned to the change of seasons. Lexa probably should have, given that the ache in her knee had dissipated, as if following the cold to the pastures to give her some reprieve. The gardens had become greener, but wetter from melted snow. Even the staff themselves seemed more just cheerful, though they'd always carried an air of deference and pity whenever crossing her path.

The only thing that hadn't taken on a fresh air was her worsened relationship with her parents. Anya and Lincoln had tried to do their best to be the bridge between their stubborn youngest sister and their dutiful parents, but there was only so much they could do. Lexa had also fully understood that things couldn't go on like this, not just because her siblings were stuck in a difficult place between them, but also because despite everything, she loved them and she hated this.

It was spring, but today, the ache was back, only miniscule, though it was felt. She rubbed her knee as she sat in the familiar sitting room in the old townhouse that used to be the kids' playground. She smiled in gratitude when Penelope came in with a tray of tea and snacks, murmuring her thanks when the woman sat down with her on the couch.

"How are you, Your Highness?" Penelope asked, a kind and inquisitive smile on her face.

Lexa rolled her eyes. "Penelope, how many times –"

"Don't bother," Gustus grunted as he leaned against the archway that led to the study. He'd trimmed his beard and cut his hair, but the best part was that his skin was healthier – she'd been concerned. There was a gentle smile on his face, a rare occurrence. "Pen's been calling your father 'Your Majesty' even though they were childhood friends," he air-quoted, pushing away from the archway to make his way towards them.

Ah yes, she had kind of forgotten about that. There was a reason Gustus was so loyal to the family, a reason Penelope was so forgiving of her husband's ventures for them. The history between her parents and this couple was deep, stretching so far back to the moment Richmond and Penelope were toddlers, that sometimes Lexa had a hard time grasping that they were still in each other's lives today.

There was a lot she could learn from these four adults. From fighting tactics to ruling, but the one thing that she had truly admired them for was their capacity for love.

The way her father deeply appreciated and loved two women in his lifetime, but made way for a whole other kind of devotion for her mother once he laid eyes on her, though he was slated to be married to Penelope at one point.

The way Storme had defied her parents' instructions to marry a royal, knowing all the risks and heartache that came with falling in love with a future monarch.

The way Gustus had joined the security detail after being honorably discharged from the army and promptly fell in love with king's fiancée at the time, and swore to stand quietly by her side instead of making a move.

The way Penelope had forgiven Richmond for being emotionally unfaithful and remained his lifelong friend, but also found a brighter path in Gustus as her husband.

She learned how to fight from Gustus, how to be for the people from Richmond, how to read between the lines and understand the law better than anyone else from Storme, and how to be loyal from Penelope. But love, well, she'd learned that from all of them. Then again, a fat lot of good it did her now.

"You're looking better," Lexa commented, smirking at Gustus.

The man chuckled – he was always more relaxed at home – and sat down beside his wife. "I'm returning to duty tomorrow. Don't even say anything." He raised a finger when she opened her mouth to protest. "I've already spoken to your father. Doctor's also cleared me for duty." He clicked his tongue. "I don't trust you to be out there alone."

Knowing that Gustus was a hard-headed man and there was no way to persuade him to _just_ retire, Lexa rolled her eyes and directed her attention to Penelope. "I'm sorry that your husband's always looking for ways to be away from you," she remarked, a little sharply for Gustus to hear.

"Oh, don't worry, Your Highness. He makes up for it when he's home," Penelope replied, patting her husband's knee. Lexa blanched at the connotation and shuddered at the thought. "It's good to see you back on your feet, Your Highness." Lexa squinted a little and tilted her head at the cane leaning against the arm of the couch. "There are many ways for one to be back on their feet. You're a strong one, I know it." She smiled at the older woman and nodded in acceptance. Penelope stood up and placed a kiss on Gustus' cheek before saying, "Well, I'll leave you two alone to talk things out. I hope you'll come by again soon, Your Highness."

"Oh, of course. These cookies are to die for." To prove her point, Lexa leaned forward to grab two cookies, munching delightfully at one.

Soon enough, Penelope was out of the house, perhaps making her way to the palace to find companionship in her mother. Gustus and Lexa were left alone in the sitting room, and the wall clock to the east was just being plain annoying in its clicking.

She turned to her loyal bodyguard and found him staring – no, scrutinizing – her. In his eyes, she could spot a hint of irritation and sympathy. He wasn't there to witness her argument with her father at the hospital, but she was certain that he was perceptive enough to know things were bad, especially since Anya was the only one to show up at the hospital to pick them up, regardless of an array of security detail.

"Don't start," she scoffed.

"What?"

"What did he tell you?"

"Who?"

"Look, I'm not done being angry with them, so my father getting you to talk to me won't work. I won't –"

"He didn't ask me to say anything," Gustus cut her off, crossing her arms. She frowned. "They know you're angry, and the truth is they're not used to this kind of cold shoulder from you, but they didn't ask me to say anything. In fact, your father has some kind of idea that you'll come around eventually."

She looked away. "I'm not sure what's there to come around from," she murmured like a petulant child, almost pouting had her mother not teach her to put that habit away ages ago.

"You're being unreasonable."

"Are you seriously taking their side?"

She was ticked off not because of what he said; she was ticked off because deep down, she knew he was right. As a soldier, as a commander, Lexa had always had to make difficult decisions, but the choices she had were often binary and clear cut. Do something and die, or do something and don't die. Sometimes, there was more difficult choice, but her patriotism had always won out in those situations. She was loyal to her people, first and foremost.

Never had she ever felt so torn apart by herself like this instance, because she _was_ loyal to her people, but she was also loyal to Clarke. She wanted Clarke – she didn't need the woman, she hadn't needed anyone since Costia broke up with her and she realized that needing people was just terrible, but she _wanted_ Clarke. Her fingers twitched and her heart pounded and her mind went hazy and she _loved_ Clarke so much that she warred with death itself.

And she didn't know how to reconcile the two sides of her loyalty without breaking down her own identity. Lexa, as she grew and developed and matured, had always been defined by one thing: duty. And the fact was that as much as she didn't like the role she'd been born into, she thoroughly _relished_ in the duties that she had to pull off, the scope of influence she could exert to do good in the world – she wouldn't be able to do the things she had done had she just been a commoner with nothing to her name.

"There's no side to take, Your Highness," Gustus said.

"Oh, for the love of –" She jumped to her feet a little too fast that the ache that had been there since it started raining this morning _flared_. Her teeth clenched and she couldn't help the loud grunt from escaping her throat, but she held up a hand to stop Gustus from approaching her. "You and your damn wife," she complained quietly, shaking her head.

He was quiet for a moment. "I knew I didn't like her for a reason," he finally said.

"Come off it. You had no idea what to do with Clarke to even begin to know that you don't like her. And you like her just fine. No one challenges me like she does," she added.

"I don't like her for breaking your heart," he settled.

She considered his words and could only shrug. "You get that, I guess." When the flare dissipated, she straightened herself and grabbed the cane to prop herself up before she fell to a heap. "I'll see you tomorrow, Gus."

He nodded. "Yes, you will."

* * *

 _Lexa (1:35a.m.): You called Niylah._

 _Clarke (1:46a.m.): i dont regret it  
Clarke (1:46a.m.): it was a lot n i needed a friend n she was the best person 4 it _

_Lexa (1:46a.m.): Did she tell you to break up with me?_

 _Clarke (1:48a.m.): no_

 _Lexa (1:49a.m.): What did she tell you?_

 _Clarke (1:53a.m.): thats nt how this wrks lexa  
Clarke (1:53a.m.): she hd ntg 2 do w it i made the decision on my own  
Clarke (1:54a.m.): she came 2 the hospital as a friend n ntg more  
Clarke (1:55a.m.): look regardless of wat happened i still wan better n uve told me that niylah's been vry effective  
Clarke (1:55a.m.): pls dont let w/e happened btween us affect ur progress lexa_

* * *

Normally, the office would be alerted of her coming by to clear out the place before her arrival – that was the normal procedure for royalty; the public couldn't know about their precious leading family going for therapy, as unconventional as they may be.

But today was different. There were people in the waiting room, making appointments or just done with their sessions and grabbing a snack from the vending machine. All of whom were taken aback when Lexa hobbled out of the elevator, followed closely by her newly restored bodyguard. Their eyes were wide and hands were trembling; their brains had probably stopped working at the sight of a princess showing up at their therapist's office.

Well, the princess couldn't exactly blame them; she _had_ made the final decision to make it to her standing appointment with Niylah only thirty minutes ago. Even the receptionist seemed surprised to see her. Niylah probably thought that Lexa would never return after her walkout last week. Thankfully enough, she had the forthwith to have Rachel print out a set of NDAs just in case, which Gustus had immediately handed out to the people in the waiting room with an intimidating grunt.

"Good afternoon, everyone," she greeted with as friendly a smile as possible. Turning to the receptionist, she asked, "Does my standing appointment still…stand?"

With a hesitating nod, the receptionist pretty much shot into the office, coming out a minute later to nod at Lexa again. "She's waiting for you, Your Highness."

"Thank you, Dinah."

Before entering the office, she turned back to the rest of the room, still gawping at her. She sighed; another disadvantage of being who she was. "Don't mind me. Just getting it fixed," she said with a tap to her temple, eliciting a disapproving huff from Gustus. "Don't bully the people, Gus," she warned, a playful smile on her face. The door swung close behind as she hobbled into the office, where Niylah was sitting behind her desk with a ready but tentative expression on her face. "I'm not gonna bite, Niylah," Lexa sighed, sitting down in front of the desk.

Niylah smiled a little at her remark. "It's good to see you here again, Your Highness."

She hummed, waving her fingers around nonchalantly. "You just want my money."

"Well, a girl's gotta stay in business somehow."

"I'd say you're doing pretty well for yourself, judging by your roster of clients."

The therapist clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. "So what can I do for you today, Your Highness?"

"I've been told that I'm being unreasonable for giving my parents the cold shoulder since I came back from Libya."

Niylah stood up and pulled out a file from one of the cabinets behind her – Lexa's file. She thumbed through it, picked up her trusty blue ballpoint pen, and sat back down. "Why don't you tell me more about that?"

And just like that, everything was swept under the rug. Her text conversation with Clarke didn't surface the answer she wanted, a reason for her to completely lay the blame on Niylah and let that be the whole thing, but it was enough, she supposed, if she was here now. After all, even after her walkout last week, she couldn't really blame Clarke for having called Niylah to the hospital that day. Everybody needed somebody, and it was just coincidental that Niylah was the best person for the occasion at that moment.

Plus, for someone who had resisted therapy as much as she did before, it would be unfair to deny that Niylah's services did do her a lot of good in the long run. And she didn't trust anyone else enough to do the same thing, because the truth was that even when she had come here in the first place, it was only because she trusted in Clarke's opinion of Niylah. By virtue, Lexa only trusted Niylah for her to unload all her burdens on.

There was something to be discussed about that, that it's a story for another session.

* * *

Sooner or later, Lexa would grow more than impatient with the state of restfulness that Wells had relegated her to. He had been coming over eight times over four weeks, always humming after pulling the cold end of the stethoscope away from her chest, always pinching his lips at his diagnosis, always telling her to take a breather, always saying that looking at some green would help.

The only good thing he had to tell her was that her heart was still beating and that was it; they both knew the truth wasn't just it. Despite signs of recovery in her whatever with Clarke, the wounds remained. Before, she would have been selfish enough to blame her entire condition on Clarke, even though she had let the doctor go. Now though, she was perceptive enough to know her family and she herself had contributed to it, thanks to Niylah.

It wasn't to say that the therapy hadn't helped. As expected, the breakup with Clarke, the breakdown of her relationship with her parents, and the things she'd seen in Libya, had reversed at least two thirds of the progress she'd made with Niylah previously, so everything was slow going.

But she'd also learned something else about her relationship with her family and her title and her sense responsibility, and she'd only become more restless when she came home. In lieu of that, she ignored Wells' prerogative and hobbled to her office, directing Rachel to brief her on everything she'd missed out for the past month or so.

And she stayed in her office. Dinner was dismissed. Coffee had been replenished twice throughout. Candidates for her programs were approved or rejected. Jaha's well-wishing letter was promptly ignored. She missed it, getting back to work, doing what she had set out to do since she was discharged almost a year ago. This was why she couldn't ever fully let go of her title.

She was so absorbed in her work that she didn't hear the door opening and someone coming in. Didn't notice an intruder making their way to the coffee table in the room until they cleared their throat.

Quick as a flash, Lexa grabbed for the cane and readied herself in as best a fighting position as she could, ready to face whomever was here to attack her. She blinked when she saw her father raising his hands in capitulation in air, even looking kind of afraid at his daughter's preparedness to take him out.

See? A long way to go.

The cane was replaced in the latch that was attached to her desk. She lowered her head and cupped her forehead in her hand, looking down at the paperwork that she wasn't reading and taking a few deep breaths, reciting weapons in her head as she went. Physician she was not, but the way her heart was going was definitely not good.

"I called your name three times," Richmond justified.

She nodded and put up her free hand. "Yeah, okay," she breathed. Once she was sure she was calm, she looked up at him and nodded in acknowledgement – like she said, things were learned at Niylah's today. "What are you doing here?" she asked, lacking the animosity that had lingered in her tone whenever she spoke with them prior.

"I want to tell you something. Keep you informed," he said.

She swallowed a reactionary scoff and just cleared her throat. Her parents had already taken a lot of steps in repairing their relationship, and as Niylah had told her this afternoon, she couldn't expect them to take all the steps.

See, one thing she'd learned from her session today, even without Niylah spelling everything out for her, was that she herself had to take the blame for always jumping forward to bear her responsibility and duties. Take the trip to Libya for example, Anya herself had said that Lexa could do the irresponsible thing for once and miss out on the plane, but even when she had entertained the thought, her attachment to her duties had made her cut her small camping trip with Clarke short to get on the plane.

In fact, her entire family was bred that way: dutiful and for the people. It wouldn't make any sense for her to maintain her anger at her family for being the way she was. If her mother or father had been asked to make the trip to Libya on Service Day, they would have taken on the job without much complaining, regardless of whether they wanted to go or not. Lexa, as it happened, was just the most suitable for it.

"Have you ever thought of just letting it all go? Relinquishing that invisible cape you carry on your shoulders? You wouldn't be the first," Niylah had prodded.

Lexa had started at the question. Niylah wouldn't be the first to ask that question either – Costia had asked it once during the course of their revived friendship – but Lexa was still surprised at it. Well, not so much surprised, more like affronted at the audacity of the question. The things she could do with her title, like what she was doing for the families of her fellow soldiers and what she used to do for the LGBT community, how could she ever shirk back from that?

No, no, she had never thought about it. And she couldn't.

"What is it?" she asked her father.

Richmond gestured at the tray of food he'd brought in. "Come on. Let's get some food in you." He sat down on the couch and raised his eyebrows at her.

She wanted to refuse, but baby steps, so she took the cane again and hobbled over to the coffee table, willfully ignoring the way he eyed her cane with a smidge of guilt. Plus, after hours of towering over her desk, she had to admit that starvation had set in somewhere along the day – she was just too absorbed in her work to notice.

"What is it?" she repeated after a few mouthfuls of soup and some bread.

He made a noise of reprehension, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. "Your mother and I have discussed this at length…and we've made the decision to award Clarke with a countship."

If anyone asked, Lexa would deny this until the day she died. But her good leg jerked so violently at the announcement that it knocked against the table and toppled the vase of fresh peonies over, spilling tainted water all over the carpet and running the table into her father's calves in the process, eliciting a yelp from the man himself.

They both spent a few moments cursing at one another, at themselves, at the vase, and at the table. So noisy that some maids and two security guards had scurried in, with their feather dusters and guns at the ready. The maids, seeing the scene before them, hurried to pick up the vase and mess of flowers and scurried out, not before promising they would return to deal with the carpet once the king and princess were done with their discussion. Meanwhile, the guards had holstered their guns and stood at attention, their lips twitching.

"It's fine. You can laugh," Lexa permitted, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, and tell them it's just the princess taking her anger out on her father in a _very immature manner_ ," Richmond butted in, mock glaring at his daughter.

"It was an accident!"

"Sure, it is."

"Oh, don't be a baby. I remember the three of us doing much worse when we were kids."

"Huh. Glad you _do_ remember the nightmare you were."

"Yes, I remember grandmother once telling us that we got it from you. Mom was never so clumsy."

"Your mother's grace personified."

"Gross."

"Such rudeness after almost incapacitating your dear old dad."

"Come off it. It's not like you lost your leg from it."

The atmosphere quickly turned somber at the reminder. The king stared at the princess for a moment before waving the guards away to leave the two of them alone. Lexa played with the leftover bread, but didn't continue eating, his previous announcement swirling around in her head.

"She won't like it," Lexa said.

"Well, that's the first time I ever heard of someone not liking a noble title."

She shrugged and scratched the back of her neck. "Just like us, dad, Clarke's only doing her job, because she's a doctor like that. It doesn't matter _who_ she saves."

"I'm sure you being the person she loves –"

"Loved," she corrected, closing her eyes.

It wasn't that she wasn't grateful towards Clarke for doing all she could to save Lexa's life _twice_ , and she would love to shower the doctor with everything she got to prove her gratitude. But knowing Clarke, she knew the woman would probably find ways to shrink out of the reward and go on with her life. She didn't like attention as much as Lexa.

Furthermore, there was a reason behind their breakup – to save Clarke from further heartbreak of being the beloved of a royalty. Lexa wasn't certain that a noble title would do the progress any good; it would be a reminder of their short journey together. She still had the voicemail saved in her phone, and sometimes, she wished she hadn't entered the blonde's life at all, if only to never have to hear that voice so distraught.

"I'm sorry," her father voiced after a long pause.

She nodded. "Yeah, you've said." She cleared her throat and heaved a trembling sigh. "No, I get that you're sorry, and I can see that you and mom are trying. And I know that you were just doing your job, and I really do understand that. I've also started to grasp that you and mom are not the only ones at fault here. But the fact remains that it happened and she left. Just give me time."

"All the time you need."

She brushed her hair back and cleared her throat. "Which land?"

"Arkadia."

The Duchess of Goldcrest's eyes widened and she had to all she can to not yield another kneejerk reaction, literally. Arkadia city was almost as rich a territory as Goldcrest, if only a little smaller and a little lesser in population. Historically, it was a parcel that was usually bestowed to dukes or viscounts, never counts. But most importantly, Arkadia city was just a fence away from Goldcrest – they were neighbors.

For the first time tonight, Richmond had a placating smile across his lips as he nodded in understanding. "She's good for you. I can tell. And I just – your mother and I want a chance to…apologize to her as well, I suppose. A countship will do well, don't you think? A countship in Arkadia." She was numb and unresponsive. He chuckled and stood up, placing a kiss on her temple. "Sleep tight, kid."

* * *

The routine of waking up was simple. Let the chips of the early morning drift through her ears and knock her brain into consciousness. Linger in bed for around fifteen minutes and climb out. A quick shower with _scalding_ water and head down to the pool house to sit on the deck and watch the sunrise. Get breakfast at either the dining room or in her office, depending on where her parents were.

Birds chirping didn't wake her up this morning. No, it was the dull but relentless throbs in her chest. She felt like there was something pounding away against her bones, fighting to get the hell out of its cage, and leave her to dead.

She struggled to get an arm to work while the other was clutching her chest, willing for it to stop. She didn't make any visible sounds of pain, only a few gasps in between. A hand reached out to the bedside table, scrambling helplessly as her vision flashed for her phone. All she managed was knocking a lamp off and crashing the glass of water into pieces. Well, that was noisy enough.

She rolled off the bed and crashed to the floor, only marginally thankful that there was a carpet to bolster her fall. The door opened and a few sets of feet came scrambling in and the last thing she saw was Lincoln's fearful face. Then…darkness.

* * *

 **am i projecting my own pain onto the fic? uh, yeah, maybe.**


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